The only British society dedicated to water tower culture and history.

"Onwards and Upwards"
Essex Industrial Heritage Fair: Saturday, October 5 th 2019 Chelmsford Corporation Water Works, now Sandford Mill --> Chelmsford Corporation Water Works, now Sandford Mill Chelmsford Corporation purchased the Sandford Mill site ( a water powered corn mill ) in 1923 for their new waterworks. Water was taken from both the River Chelmer and a borehole, then treated before being pumped to Galleywood…
BWTAS Committee member, Brian Light, has completed his book on Colchester's massive, iconic water tower, that he started writing, back in 2001. The book, published by the Balkerne Tower Trust, tells the history of the Jumbo water tower, it also relates the story of Jumbo the elephant, describes the water tower era and a brief history of water supply. It is profusely illustrated with old drawings,…
Another chance for BWTAS members to visit... The tower before conversion… © Peter Loosley Members last had the opportunity to visit this tower in Tiptree, back in August 2013: Lots to see at Tiptree… when conversion of this unique tower, was in it's infancy. Now the conversion is complete and owner Jim Underwood has kindly offered us a return visit. The size of group is limited and it is only open…
BWTAS Update… While this blog has been rather quiet of late, there has been a lot of activity going on in the background… We held our committee meeting in Wenhaston, back in January, to plan the year ahead and following that, a second follow up meeting took place in Halesworth to review progress and further flesh out our programme and advance other projects. This has resulted in rather more work…
© Photograph Copyright Wil Harvey When BWTAS Chairman Wil Harvey was visiting the Netherlands, he of course kept his eye open for any interesting water towers. The above tower was spotted in Delft and convieniently it had a plaque on it, informing us that this Watertoren was built in 1895 and contained 600,000 litres (132,000 gallons). It gave the architect as M.A.C. Hartman. Further investigation…
BWTAS Planning Meeting ! My countdown Countdown --> The BWTAS committee are meeting in January to plan the year ahead and members are most welcome to join us. We will be meeting at the Wenhaston Village Hall Café, that is on the corner of Hall Road & Narrow Way, Wenhaston , IP19 9EQ . Post meeting, we plan to adjourn to the Star Inn (⅓ rd mile down the road) for lunch. This is where the society…
© Photograph Copyright Dr Carmen Wheatley Located at N 49.479359° W 2.528773 ° , in the top corner of the St Clair vinery 1 meadows, on Delancey Hill. This is the only decorated Victorian water tower in Guernsey! Built by Gervase Footit Peek, founder of the Guernsey Press (builder of most of the 19th century vineries in the North part of the island) it is believed that the water tower was built in…
© Photograph Copyright Brian Light The above photograph was sent to me by fellow BWTAS committee member, Brian Light, while on holiday. Brian thought this was a rather unusual water tower, looking more like a grain silo, however the sinage clearly indicated that it was a water tower. This water tower is indeed unusual, as like many, it has two tanks, but unusually in this instance, they are…
© Photograph Copyright Peter Loosely The above picture has the note: " Water tower construction — Nigeria (tower collapsed when filled with water) ". Another picture here and here . I came across this photograph, that I think was probably taken in the 1980s, when scanning some of the vast collection of photographs donated to BWTAS by Peter Loosely ( A Water Tower Windfall!! ). This reminded me of…
Brian Light, Wil Harvey and Ferrers Young man the BWTAS & BTT stand at Basildon The big news is, at last, there seems to be a bright future for Colchester's "Jumbo" water tower. Brian Light of the Balkerne Tower Trust was able to update folk at the Essex Industrial Heritage Fair, with the latest news: The Colchester and North East Essex Building Preservation Trust have reached an agreement with…
The British Water Tower Appreciation Society will have a presence at the Essex Industrial Heritage Fair just South of Basildon, this coming Saturday. BWTAS has teamed up with the local Balkerne Tower Trust in order to have a stand at this event, hosted by the Essex Industrial Archaeology Group. Entry and parking are both Free !!! The Wat Tyler Country Park also offers: 125 acres of stunning…
North Norfolk's answer to the Northern Lights… This stunning image was sent in by BWTAS member, Carys O'Brien — Laser lights illuminated Knapton’s landmark water tower with the words "Trunchonbury Festival" ( they have a very nice web site ). The original image is a massive 4096 × 2304 pixels and makes excellent "wallpaper" for your computer's Desktop — click this link to access the full size…
The new BWTAS mugs now available --> Mugs Away ! A redesigned BWTAS mug is now available! This time, it not only features the BWTAS logo, but also a unique work of art — the stunning interpretation of a London water tower – 'Ladbroke Lady' by Suffolk artist Clare Johnson . The mugs are available in two sizes: Bone china (8 fl oz) or the larger (10 fl oz) enamel mug. These new mugs are only…
Britain's second water tower to utilise prestressed reinforced concrete! Pre-stressed concrete was first used in this country for water tower construction back in 1953, for the small Meare tower in Somerset, which we featured here in February, 2009 . Like the earlier tower, the Manton tower completed some eight years later, again only uses pre-stressed concrete for the tank, that has a capacity of…
Skyline Tree leaning on Old side view --> © Photograph Copyright Martin Tomlinson BWTAS was recently contacted by Martin Tomlinson, who kindly provided information and images of the Lathockar water tower — a tower until then, unknown to BWTAS. Martin had supplied St Andrews in focus magazine, with an article back in July 2013, when the tower was surrounded by trees. An extract that is reproduced…
© Copyright Michael Smith and Linda Woodward, reproduced by kind permission of SARA Strabroke Village Archive The above image was taken by the prolific photographer Geoffrey Smith in 1953. Much of his work has been made available by the Stradbroke Archive & Record Association on their web site . Unfortunately we don't know which water tower it is being built — it was labelled “Fressingfield Water…
BWTAS was recently contacted by Peter Loosley, who had been photographing water towers since 1976. He was unaware of our existence until his wife, Pat, read about us in Bill Bryson's book "The Road to Little Dribbling". He was keen that his collection of over 1,000 water towers worldwide went to a good home and offered them to us. A small delegation from BWTAS was assembled and went to meet Peter…
Information Request… © Copyright Anthony Parkes and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence The above water tower is a Grade II listed building . Built in 1909 by Major Philip Hunloke to serve the Bucknell Manor estate and the village of Bucknell. It was used until the 1950s when mains water was installed. The tower, often referred to as Trow Pool water tower, is very prominent on…
© Photograph Copyright Edmund Silvester BWTAS member, Jennifer Silvester, kindly sent in this photograph of the now converted water tower located at TQ 06019 85191 . The Uxbridge tower was completed in 1907 for the Uxbridge Water Works company, holding 80,000 gallons of water. Looking at old maps , we see that by 1934 a large reservoir has been built beside the tower, by Uxbridge Urban District…
It's here ! The BWTAS 2016 Calendar Your Christmas presents solved… especially for your friend/relative who has everything: the 2016 BWTAS Water Towers Calendar. For the Reduced sum of £2·00 + £1·50 p&p , you can have a year's worth of stunning water tower images, including some from the BWTAS North Yorkshire Tour 2015. Orders with cheque made out to BWTAS please, to BWTAS, Green Gables, The…
The British Water Tower Appreciation Society will have a presence at the Industrial Heritage Fair in Braintree, Essex, this coming Saturday. BWTAS has teamed up with the local Balkerne Tower Trust in order to have a stand at this event, hosted by the Essex Industrial Archaeology Group — a programme of events can be downloaded here . Entry is Free . BWTAS will have copies of the definitive book on…
A chance for members to visit… The water tower was designed in 1897 by Sir Ernest George based on Dutch architecture of the time, it is the only ten sided water tower in Europe and is built of Cawston red brick, made at the Marshall Howard Brick Kiln. The owner of Cawston Manor, an American stockbroker coincidently called George Cawston , had it built to get fresh water to the Manor. David Forster…
According to the Sunday Times crime writer Lesley Thomson's latest novel The Detective's Secret is a "haunting novel about loss and reconciliation". It features a fictional water tower inspired by Thomson staying in a friend's converted tower in Paddington and BWTAS gets a grateful mention in the acknowledgements for supplying Lesley with a reading list. Crime novels featuring water towers in the…
"Britain is rich with forgotten architecture: extraordinary buildings, structures and ideas that helped define the landscape of their time and the technology of the future, but which are often unknown to the general public." Lesser Known Architecture is an ongoing photographic research project by Theo Simpson that seeks to document these structures, bringing their existence (and sometimes their…
Photographer Dennis Pedersen has always had a thing for water towers. He says he was inspired by the futuristic cartoon The Jetsons and Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds. Never did he think that he might one day be the proud owner of one. Last year he bought a decommissioned Braithwaite type tower just outside Castle Acre in Norfolk. To his dismay though he found that the presumed fate for the…