A reliable water supply is essential to any community and industries are often sited in locations where water is available. Water needs to be managed and directed to be released needed and the technology which are now sees that has often in the past been groundbreaking. The earliest water management that we are aware of was undertaken for the royal palaces at Greenwich and Eltham. We have to assume that those without these systems had recourse to wells – sites of which are largely unknown.
For important buildings pipe work – conduits – were put in
to bring fresh water down from Blackheath to Greenwich. One such early water supply system was the Arundel Conduit which
took water from the ‘Primrose Hill area’ (that is roughly the site of Vanbrugh
Castle) to the ancient courthouse of the Abbey of St. Peter’s This is mentioned by references to it in the
Ghent archives in messages to the Abbott from his agent in Greenwich.[1] In 1431 Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester
got Royal consent for an underground conduit to his house from a ‘certain fount
called Stockwell’. [2]
At the south end of the Borough
is the Conduit Head behind Holy Trinity Church in Eltham. It is thought to have been built
under Henry VII around 1500 by Henry VII to supply water to Eltham Palace via a pipe under the moat. The brick structure
contained a sluice and tank to control the flow of water from springs.[3]
The most elaborate and well known system is that in Greenwich
Park where several structures remain, and are of a size which makes them very
visible. A survey of them was carried out 1695, which found eight existing
conduits, and there have been other investigations since including one by the
Metropolitan Borough of Greenwich in 1905[4] and a more recent
archaeological report. Since then there have been various visits where they are
accessible, various reports and much speculation. It is stressed that what
remains are from the 17th century and built to supply water to the
Royal Hospital although the engineers who built them may have used material
from earlier systems, which doubtless existed. It is probably no longer possible to be
exactly sure of the use or indeed the extent of many of the various structures
which remain, let along those which they replaced or of which fragments remain.
Most of what remains are brick structures which are clearly old.
It has been suggested that there are at least 12 conduits dating from the 17th
and 18th centuries. One, near Crooms Hill has a plaque saying “Greenwich
Hospital Standard Reservoir” and may have been designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor
passages here go to a structure on the corner of Hyde Vale there is another
conduit called the Standard Conduit, with a small reservoir nearby. Venturing
further into the park are other pieces of brickwork, hollows, manholes and what
appear as earthworks. To the west there is a conduit arch below One Tree Hill with
tunnels behind it.[5]
The system went out of use when they were placed by the large
circular reservoir in the south west of the park. It was built by the Admiralty
in 1844 but seems later to have been owned by the Kent Water Company and it is[6] marked as such on maps. It
is said to have been used as air raid shelter no. 4 in the Second World War.[7]
The Kent Water Works dated from
the early 18th century and still functions, albeit as a very small
part of what was a large site. It now
has a large pumping facility as Thames Water’s Deptford Pumping station in Beck
Close, Lewisham but the site, on the River Ravensbourne, was that of the
Brookmill, and it stood in Brookmill Road.
Despite the fact that Greenwich stands on the Thames it is not and has
not been its source of fresh water. For the last three centuries Greenwich
water has come from the river Ravensbourne and wells nearby.
Brook Mill was one of the old mills on the Ravensbourne and maybe one of those mentioned in Domesday Book. It was certainly extant from the middle ages and the 17th century was Taylors Corn Mill... In 1701 a Royal Charter was granted to William Yarnold and Robert Watson to take water from the river and to supply I to the manors of Sayes Court and East Greenwich and it allowed them to break open the pavements roads in order to lay pipes.[8] In 1772 the plant appears to have passed into the ownership of the engineer, John Smeaton and he reconditioned the pumping part of the plant[9] using new water wheels. In 1809 the works was taken over by the Kent Water Company. They erected a small rotative beam engine by Boulton and Watt on near the water wheel in 1810, and a second engine in 1826. They also began to greatly extend the area of supply to included Woolwich, the Royal Ordnance and Artillery Barracks, the Royal Arsenal, H.M. Dockyards, and the Royal Observatory at Greenwich By 1857 the Ravensbourne was becoming polluted and quality was dropping as demand was increasing. Cold Bath Well was dug in the grounds of the waterworks followed by Garden, and The Twins - sunk 30 metres into the chalk between 1849 and 1876 and in 1861 supply from Ravensbourne was discontinued. [10]
The Metropolitan Water
Board took the works over in 1903, and sunk a new main well 40 metres deep in
1930, connected by adits to the older wells. All these wells are still in use,
and supply water to a large area. The capped tops of the Coldbath and Garden
wells remained visible. More recently
the area of the works has been cut back to a small area on the east bank of the
Ravensbourne.
In the 19th
century the Kent water works was to grow and grow and to acquire an enviable
reputation. It covered most of what we
now know as 'Royal' Greenwich, however
inevitably in Woolwich there was a need for water supplies to guard against
fire and also for general use in the dockyard and later the military and the
arsenal. Two ponds in Woolwich were
adapted in the 18th century for this use.
Mulgrave Pond is still a
feature in Woolwich as an unexpected glimpse of a rural world in the middle of
town . It is north of Artillery Place and was set up in the early 1750s as a
reservoir to provide water in case of fire and because Dockyard officers wanted
fresh water in their houses. Following
negotiations with the Bowater estate in the 1750s a pond with a brick and earth
embankment and brick lined conduits was formed and leased to the Admiralty. It
was later adapted to supply the Royal Artillery Barracks and in 1815 fed steam
engines in the Arsenal with a pipe under
Wellington Street. The Board of
Ordnance bought the site in 1800 and fenced it in. There was also a small engine
house. It is now private. [11]
Long Pond was in the area
west of what is now Repository Wood where there was a small farm pond west which
was converted into a reservoir in the 1750s to supply the dockyard . There was
also a brick conduit house which remained into the 1950s . The pond itself was filled
in probably during the Second World War.[12]
An early purchase of the
Kent Water Works in Woolwich was of the Bowater Pond which they converted into
a reservoir in 1812. This had been a
feature in the gardens of Bowater House.
The Admiralty was to buy it in 1856 and it became the site of the Royal
Marine Infirmary. The Kent Company
followed this in 1844 with a three-acre circular reservoir to supply Woolwich Dockyard.
It is on the west side of what is now Academy Road and was built in conjunction
with the Admiralty, It was later adapted to supply the rest of the military
estate in Woolwich and fed from artesian wells.[13]
A meanwhile in Aberdeen a
Dr. Thomas Clark had patented a means of stopping water this important patent
was to become a major element in the water supply of Woolwich, Charlton and
Plumstead.[14]
And some point in the 1880s
a Plumstead Woolwich ,and Charlton Consumers Pure Water company was set up by
dissatisfied customers who were unhappy with the service provided by the Kent
Water Company. A Woolwich water works was set up with a well in
what is now Waverley Road. The works is
said to date from 1861 and it used
Clark’s water softening process turning the water into a ‘splendid
blue colour of the water in the “softening” tanks’. [15] The works was the first to use this treatment
and all the early plants using the Clark lime process were designed by Samuel Collett Homersham, who was also
the company engineer.[16]
A reservoir now in
Heavitree Road is said to have a possible date of 1840 – and a plaque above the
doorway saying ‘1854’ may be the date of a roof. It is possible that this is the longest
serving brick built 19th
century reservoir in London. There were three other reservoirs at the
Waverley Road site and water was pumped from there to Heavitree Road which was
used as the service reservoir. [17]
The works did not prosper and was soon insolvent and then taken over by the
North Kent Water Company. They in turn were taken over by the Kent Water
Company in 1864.[18]
Meanwhile the Kent Water
Works continued to expand with a new well opened in an old chalk pit at
Charlton in 1864. They installed there a pumping engine from Harvey’s of Hale. However by 1881 water was only pumped for
non-domestic purposes and it closed in 1900.[19]
It is now the site of flats, Prentis Court, built for their workers by Harveys,
Greenwich Metal Works, and now owned by Borough of Greenwich. A pumping station was also built in Shooters
Hill Road in 1863 on a site later used for the Brook Hospital. The buildings remain
as the stone faced block on Shooters Hill Road, while the buildings of the
Brook, behind, have largely been demolished.[20]
The Royal Herbert Hospital
was opened in 1865 originally for recovering Crimean War casualties. It was
commissioned by Sydney Herbert, working closely with Florence Nightingale. She commented on the hardness of the water in
the area and said ‘the water was softened ... by Dr. Clark’s process which was
found to be highly satisfactory’.[21] To
service this a water works and softening plant were built on Shooters Hill.[22] This remained until removed in the
1930s. The hospital itself was ‘considered to be such a leap forward in design and patient treatment
that a new Commission of 1883 congratulated it as "one of the best of the
modern great hospitals".[23]
It closed in 1977 and is now flats.
The Kent Company was to
build more in the Shooters Hill area towards the end of the century, In 1872 a
reservoir at the rear of the Royal Military Academy in what is now Academy Road
and in 1890 a reservoir on Constitution Hill.[24] There were still problems with water pressure
on Shooters Hill itself and to solve this the Gothic water tower on Shooters
Hill was built finished by the Metropolitan Board in 1909[25].
Water was pumped there from well in Orpington.[26] This
is a landmark to be seen for miles around and must represent some sort of
pinnacle of the Kent Company’s work As
their plant was passed to the Metropolitan Water Board it was said ‘this great
scheme had gradually spread eastward and southward from the old pumping station
at Deptford ... this supply is of such high quality that it is often taken as a
standard of comparison’.[27]
The Metropolitan Water
Board took over what they called “the Kent area“ in 1904 and they dealt fairly
briskly with the area’s past “ there were no storage reservoirs .. several of the
stations were without duplicate engines” . They set about to remedy this
situation. The old Shooters Hill station
was abandoned, as was the Constitution Hill Reservoir ‘in an unsatisfactory condition’ and was to
be replaced on land bought from the Castle Hill estate. A pumping station was
planned for Well Hall Road.
Work was interrupted for the Great War
although in 1915 a three million gallon reservoir was approved for Eltham. In
1920 the castle wood reservoir was completed and Eltham in 1921. The pumping station in well hall road opened
in 1922 as the board’s first electric station with three electric motors
driving centrifugal fuel pumps.[28]
In 1921 the original works
of the Kent Company at Deptford was reordered and the two old Boulton and Watt
engines from 1811 and 1826 were removed and two Worthington engines were transferred
there from Molesey. A new engine house was stared and in 1927 it was decided to
completely remodelled and reorganize Deptford station. It had then three wells
in the chalk and water from the Thames was conveyed there by a main from Honor
Oak reservoir and it was decided that this supply should be increased. All the
old machinery was disposed of and a new triple expansion engine installed from
Hathorn Davey & Co. with turbines by William Moss & Sons. [29]The
new station was opened in 1932. This is the building which still remains at
Deptford.
A pumping main was also
laid from Honor Oak to Plumstead where a reservoir was to be built on Plumstead
Common. This was followed by more new
works. The board was abolished in 1974 and control transferred to the
Thames Water Authority, now Thames Water and privatised.
[1] Chelsea Speleological Society. Records Vol.6
[2] Chelsea S.Soc.
[3] Historic England. Web site
[4] Chelsea S.Soc.
[5] There are a number of booklets and web sites with details – as far as can be ascertained - and plans, Subterranean Greenwich web site is one of the most up to date but there are many others.
[6] I am very confused by this. Reports say it was built by the Admiralty designed by Sir William Thomas Denison, Superintendent at Portsmouth Dockyard, in 1844. I assume that it was passed to the Kent Water Company when the Hospital closed because they are said to have grassed it over in 1871. It is also said to be still owned by Thames Water. Historic England. Web site. Greenwich Phantom Web site. RCHME Archaeological Report.
[7] There seems little reference to this and I am only convinced because an urban explorer group has published pictures of a toilet block inside the structure. https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/threads/greenwich-park-reservoir-hyde-vale-conduit-admiralty-western-reservoir-ldn-oct-13.85046/
[8] Former Water Works. Study for St.James Homes.
[9] Details Royal Society Archives
[10] Kent Water Archives LMA. Gas Journal 1908.
[11] Survey of Woolwich
[12] Survey
[13] Survey
[14] Thomas Clark was a Scottish chemist who worked on and defined the hardness of water. He came from a humble background, working in some important Scottish chemical works and became Professor of Chemistry in Aberdeen. (DNB)
[15] Lankester. Secrets of Earth and Sea
[16] Proceedings of the Society for Water Treatment and Examination, 1963. Homersham was a distinguished hydraulic engineer, born in Shooters Hill and of a local family.
[17] N.Day http://greenwichindustrialhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/plumstead-reservoir.html
[18] Gazette 1858
[19] Smith. History of Charlton
[20] The large water tower was built for the Brook Hospital and is nothing to do with the Kent Water Works pumping station,
[21] Woodham-Smith. Florence Nightingale
[22] This was on the site now used as a car park for Severndroog Castle. It is sometimes shown on maps as a ‘reservoir’ but there was no reservoir there.
[23] Wikipedia article quoting ‘Royal Institutions in Greenwich’.
[24] Survey of Woolwich
[25] This water tower does not seem to be mentioned in the review of the area in the Metropolitan Water Board history.
[26] Spurgeon. Discover Woolwich and its Environs.
[27] Whittacker. The Water Supply of Kent.
[28] London’s Water Supply. Metropolitan Water Board
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