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Summary

Reading Water Works date back to the mid 19th century. A number of extant buildings are still on the site including the pump house, water tower and Station Supervisors house.

Monument Type(s):

• WATERWORKS (Post Medieval - 1853 AD to 1853 AD)

Description

In 1848 Parliament introduced the Public Health Act as the first step in improving sanitary conditions and therefore public heath. A local Water Act was passed in 1851 for Reading and was amended in 1868 to further provide waterworks for Reading. The original plans for the Bath Road reservoir site are dated 30th November 1850 and show the two reservoirs, four circular filtration tanks surrounded by a bund and the pump house in the south-west corner. The field is numbered ‘24’ and is recorded as being an arable field belonging to William Stephens, who appears to be a local landowner.

In 1853 the Board of Health commissioned a map of the waterworks within Reading, which included the reservoirs. This map appears to show the site as it was built, with the two reservoirs at the rear and four filtration tanks at the southern end of the site. The pump house was located to the south-west and the superintendents’ house was beside it to the west. The pump house has been extended to the rear and cut into the bund around the reservoir. It is not clear whether it was built larger than the original plan or rapidly extended after being built. The boundary with Bath Road is marked by a wall which curves to an entrance at the west end of the site. The water tower is not present at this point.

The next map to show any detail of the site is the 1879 Reading Town plan, which however, extends only as far as the water tower. The rest of the site is included on the 1881 map which shows the water tower (labelled tank) and pumping house, behind which were the two reservoirs and six circular tanks. The pump house has been extended again, to the east. At this period the house to the west of the pumping station was included within the boundary of the waterworks and was housing for the superintendent. No change is shown by 1899– 1900, but the round tanks are now labelled as filter beds. By 1911–1912 the eastern block of the pump house has been extended at the front and rear and by 1931–1932) further buildings have been added to the rear of the pump house. The westernmost of the filtration beds has also been filled in. By 1958–1960 the eastern filtration bed has also been filled in. By 1968 the northern reservoir is labelled as disused.

The water tower is a Grade II listed building. A building survey of the buildings on the Bath Road Reservoirs site (excluding the Station Supervisors House) was undertaken in 2013 <1>.

<1> Thames Valley Archaeological Services, 2014, Bath Road Reservoirs, Reading, Berkshire - Building Recording (Unpublished document). SRM14717.

<2> CgMs Consulting, 2008, Historic Buildings Report - The Water Tower, Bath Road, Reading, Berkshire (Unpublished document). SRM13753.

<3> Berkshire Industrial Archaeology Group, 2009, BIAG News (Newsletter). SRM13939.

Sources

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