Many Brigg folk today will be unaware that the town once had a water tower.
This picture is thought to date from 1902 and shows the tall tower in the centre, with St John's Church on the right.
Can anyone confirm the tower's exact location and say when it was demolished?
The Elwes family, which owned much land and property in and near the town, was involved in establishing Brigg's first piped water supply in the 1850s - fed from the St Helen's spring in Wrawby.
The brick building that gave access to the well is still standing today in a field near the public footpath which runs from Churchill Avenue, Brigg, to Tongs Farm, Wrawby.
Outbreaks of deadly water-related diseases like typhoid and cholera were a constant fear until a safe spring-fed supply was provided.
Brigg's sewage ran into the stinking town drain - located roughly where Barnard Avenue is today - and found its way into the River Ancholme.
Due to Brigg town centre being only a few feet above sea level, the tall storage tower would have allowed gravity to flow water through the pipes that served nearby properties.
Many courtyard cottages off Wrawby Street received safe-to-drink piped water from the mid-19th century but only had one tap, located near the front door - under which a metal bucket was kept by householders.
These cottages, in which is sizeable percentage of the town's population then lived, were without bathrooms; a tin bath had to be brought out of storage, placed in front of the coal fire in the living room and filled by bucket - a lengthy process.
You can still see two of the cast iron pumps that provided water in the town centre - alongside the side wall of Wetherspoon's White Horse pub (now on Grammar School Road South) and adjoining the County Bridge, close to the former Nelthorpe Arms, on Bridge Street.
Those people without piped supplies took buckets along, filled them up and took them back to their properties.
Interesting Nige.
ReplyDeleteMethinks the water pumps and the water tower are separate entities.
The water pumps were gravity-fed from St Helen's Well. They had a tank below the pumps with a ball-cock control valve..similar to the operation of a modern day wc system.
I believe thee water tower was a later phase of water supply complex.
A mains pipe would pipe water to the top of the tower...to a reservoir tank....again with ball-valve.
This would allow fresh water to be gravity-pipe to individual properties in the town, while at the same time keeping fresh water separate from possible contamination......a system still used in various communities.
At a later stage, fresh water was forced under pressure to properties avoiding the need for a water tower
The street pumps. True Nige, there introduction resolved the water-bourne disease crisis of the 1850's...but by the 1890s their tanks had alao been contaminated with such bacteria as cholera etc..and there was another major outbreak in the 1890s.
ReplyDeleteIt didn't help with the pumps being located near pubs...the outside of which were often used as toilets...!
There was then plans to introduce mains water....and the water tower.
pic taken from island carr shows clearly candley beck bridge and is nearer than the church tower which puts it roughly just off elwes st
ReplyDeleteIn which case, Smiker, would locate the tower somewhere in the locality of the present Millenium Green.
ReplyDeleteBut the structure doesn't seem to be have about for a long time...