Water tower plans lead to Poole hot water

From the Bournemouth Echo:

Ashley Road traders' anger over car park plans leads to further scrutiny

12:00pm Monday 7th October 2013 in News By Diana Henderson

Richard Wilson, far left, with other traders

RESIDENTS and traders’ fears that they may lose a crucial car park in Poole will be scrutinised by a council committee.

A massive petition signed by 1,136 people was presented by Richard Wilson, chairman of Ashley Road Traders Association, to Borough of Poole, opposing proposals by Wessex Water over the Mansfield Road car park.

The water company owns the decommissioned Grade II listed Victorian water tower and car park and is working on plans to convert the tower into two flats and build eight new homes with parking on the surrounding car park.

Under the lease Borough of Poole would be given 12 months notice to vacate the site and this has not been served – however the nearby surgery, whose patients use the car park, and residents are fearful for the future.

“It will also have a severe effect on the traders who rely on the car park – if you start taking that away you start to lose trade,” said Mr Wilson.

“It’s totally unacceptable they want to take it away after it’s been there so many years.”

The car park has 52 spaces and in a report Julian McLaughlin, head of transportation services, said existing budgets would not enable the council to buy the site.

Cllr Brian Clements, chairman of the economy overview and scrutiny committee put forward an amendment which was agreed, for his committee to look at the potential impact of any closure and to consider any possible mitigation.

He said the work the traders association was doing to support and regenerate the area was very important and he understood their dismay. They are also objecting to the possible loss of parking spaces outside shops in Ashley Road.

“The western section of the shopping area is more reliant on passing trade from motorists than other areas and there is great concern amongst traders and their customers alike as evidenced by the extraordinary level of support for the petition,” he said.

A spokesman for Wessex Water has said they are in the early stages of investigating how to restore and re-use the water tower. “We will be listening to the views of local people and discussing any concerns about local parking provision with the council.

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A flickr collection of images can be found here
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/alwyn_ladell/sets/72157632971924113/

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The 1995 Grade II listing says:

"Water tower. Late C19. For Dorset Water Board. Red brick with white brick dressings, some limestone and terracotta dressings, with cast-iron tank and other ironwork. Square plan. 3-stage tower with 2-bay sides, carrying a cast-iron tank. Tower has battered plinth of red brick in English bond with 2 recessed bands of paler red brick and limestone roll moulding to top of plinth; broken by round-headed doorway to rear (regarding street elevation as front). Sides are divided into 2 bays by giant white brick pilaster strips to angles and centre of each side. Pilaster strips have tall, thin sunk panels of red brick with round-arched heads, and bands of red brick above, defining "capitals". Round arches of white brick join pilaster strips and frame 3 tiers of tall iron-framed windows with round-arched heads of white brick, except to rear which is windowless; dentilled brick string courses at stage levels within giant arches. Large terracotta paterae to spandrels of arches joining pilaster strips and round-arched corbel frieze. Cast-iron brackets between arches of corbel frieze support iron railing and timber deck of walkway round base of tank, directly below corbel frieze. Tank has pattern of 7 square panels in 3 tiers, framing circle joined to courses by diagonals. Central circle to street side frames medallion lettered round rim JOHN ABBOT & CO GREENHEAD-ON-TYNE and in centre LIMITED 1884. INTERIOR not inspected."

An article about the near-identical twin Broadstone Water Tower at http://www.broadstone.net/archive/resassoc2002summer/12.htm says:

"In 1859, Board of Trade records show approval of a scheme to satisfy the immediate needs of Poole and Parkstone. Poole Water Co. were granted permission to construct a scheme which collected surface water from gathering grounds in the Lilliput area, lifting the water to a new water tower in Mansfield Road, Parkstone, via a steam pumping plant. Today Parkstone Water Tower is not used as part of the modem distribution infrastructure but is preserved as a Grade II listed building. Poole's demands were further supplemented by similar gathering grounds to the south west of the Shah of Persia public house, with the water distributed via mains laid in Longfleet Road and North Road, linking with the gathering grounds established at Alderney Brickworks via Old Wareham Road. ... 

Consisting of a mass concrete foundation, mass brickwork base and column surmounted by a cast iron sectional tank, the tower stands 50 ft tall from ground level to the base of the cast iron tank and typifies Victorian engineering - functional, efficient and decorative. ... Although no records of the tower's construction have been found to date by this author, a conservative calculation estimates the number of bricks in the structure to be around 400,000, most probably of local manufacture. The tower is served by an internal timber stairway giving access to an external gantry at tank level with all rising and falling mains contained within a central structural shaft. The cast iron storage tank has a capacity of 270,000 litres or 60,000 gallons, sufficient for the average daily supply of approximately 2,000 people at present day consumption rates. At the time of their construction both the tank and ground level reservoir were open topped, a feature which inevitably degraded water quality and necessitated frequent skimming and cleaning to remove debris."

Nigel Martin, Distribution Manager, Wessex Water.

e-book on Dorset water towers

Photographer Rich Meston has contacted BWTAS to tell us about his free e-Book 'Tower' a photographic study of what else, a local water tower. He writes:

This is a collection of sunrise shots from my office window, all of which feature the Water Tower at Tower Park in Poole, Dorset (in one way or another). There’s technical details for each of the shots, and a few hints and tips throughout. Let me know what you think.
Rich would like to enlist BWTAS brains trust for any information on one tower at Calluna Road, Poole.

Rich says: it's an interesting and very dominant structure on the horizon, and I lived in the area when it was built in the late 1980's. I had a bit of a search around, but couldn't find any information out and wondered if you knew of any other places to look. I'm primarily interested in the obvious details - when it was built, how tall, what capacity, what it's used for etc.

You can contact Rich Meston at rich@reikan.co.uk

Dorset Water Tower Open Day

This blog has previously highlighted the very detailed history of Dorset's Broadstone water tower. More of its history is on this external site.

News comes to us though that Blandford Forum Camera Club now occupies the former water tower of Blandford Station. The Dorset Echo reports the water tower will be open on Sunday 13th September 2009 as part of Dorset Architectural Heritage Week. Ironically, BWTAS can't locate a photograph of this building on the web although we can locate a historic image of the station.



According to its website:

BFCC was formed in 1953 and originally consisted of a small group of enthusiasts headed by David Gent, a local dentist.

Meetings were originally held in the back of a shop but as more people joined the group it was necessary to find larger premises. The club moved to an old Band room and, when numbers increased further, to a room at the rear of the Congregational Chapel. In 1969 it became necessary to move yet again and this time it was to an old Cadet Hut made available by the GPO.

In 1981 the land on which the hut was situated was sold and the club was forced yet again to find a new home and this time was offered a derelict, roofless stone building adjacent to the site of the old railway station. This building was formerly the base and pump house of the water tower which supplied water to the steam locomotives on the old Somerset and Dorset railway line.

Work commenced in February 1981, a roof was built over the four walls and windows were glazed and council permission was granted for an extension to be built after which the building included a meeting room, kitchen and toilet facilities.

In 2006 BFCC, with the help of donations and loans, became one of very few camera clubs in the UK to own its own club house.

Another fine Dorset water tower is at Swanage. If you hanker after some images of fine grouting work, there is a slide show of remedial works being carried out.

Water tower enthusiasts would also like the Sutton Poyntz Water Supply Museum managed by Wessex Water inside a working spring source and pumping station.

Broadstone Water Tower

Another informative local history site:

The history of Broadstone Water Tower is rooted in the latter half of the 19th century, indeed it formed an essential part of the then embryonic public supply to the wider conurbation of developing Poole. A brief résumé of the early history of Poole's public water supply is useful when considering the demands that brought about construction of the tower....

Leweston Water Tower

Image Mr RJ Whittick FRPS from Images of England.
Date Photographed: October 1999

Leweston Water Tower, Dorset

Much has been written of the symbolism of buildings in general and thus in popular memory of the 'twin towers' of the original Wembley Stadium.

Today "twin towers" has a whole host of meanings despite being dominated by the World Trade Center. Petronas, JRR Tolkien and Wembley are some others but it can be argued that their significance is all one.

Somewhere deep in our subconscious, from the time our forefathers erected standing stones, towers in pairs have stood for portals or boundaries for the passage of things; the light of the sun, prayers or sacrifical offerings, onto somewhere else. It can be argued that a single standing stone has one (often phallocentric) meaning whereas two is completely different, although not unrelated. Two towers together seems to make an impact greater than the sum of their parts.

Those that consider such semiotics may be interested to know that the original Wembley stadium's architect evidently had a thing for towers and there are at least two other similar examples still standing. For expediency, two sources have been cut and pasted below:

National Monument Record:

Concrete structure with conical copper roof. Octagonal on plan with angle pilasters. Vertical profile slightly convex. Doorway at ground level with polygonal arch. 3 tiers of narrow slit windows diminishing in height towards top of the tower. Top stage an open viewing platform. External timber winding stair. Interesting example of Art Deco design.

Concrete, Oct 2002 issue:

When Sir Eric Rose purchased Leweston Manor, near Sherbourne, in the late 1920s he decided to improve the water supply on the estate by constructing a water tower. He chose Maxwell Ayrton as his architect who, with Sir John Simpson, had been the architect for Wembley Stadium and the British Empire Exhibition of 1924. Sir Owen Williams was the structural engineer and Sir Robert McAlpine the contractor for this large project. A similar water tower to Leweston at Wappingthorn Farm, Steyning, Sussex was profiled in The Architects' Journal for 14 January 1931. Ayrton and Williams collaborated on this structure so, although Owen Williams' office now has no record of either structure, it seems reasonable to assume that the same team designed Leweston water tower.

The tower was built in Ferroconcrete, which was popular at the time, and is 16.Sm tall, with an additional Sm of timber for the belvedere. The inside face is a 5.7m-diameter circle; the outside is octagonal with walls i50mm thick at their narrowest. Unusually, the concrete is a 6mm aggregate mix with an exposed gravel aggregate finish. The walls are, by modern standards, extremely lightly reinforced with a single central layer of mild steel. Consequently, there was little spalling, which has been repaired with a site-- batched repair concrete.

Another unusual aspect is that the tower had two water tanks, one located approximately around the middle third of its height and the other at the top third. These had 300mm-thick heavily reinforced bases and a central octagonal shaft for access. Inner tank surfaces were waterproofed with 25mm of mastic asphalt. Around the exterior of the tower is an oak staircase, cantilevered from the walls. This was originally secured with bronze tie-roads, and leads to the top-level belvedere, which gives a panoramic view.

Around 1980, Leweston was put on the mains water supply and the tower became redundant. Over the next 20 years, the tower was allowed to decay, but the concrete structure and roof remained fundamentally sound. It was Grade II listed in October 1986, and two years later sold and converted for holiday accommodation.

In 1999, the property was bought by Patrick Firebrace, contracts manager for Concrete Repairs Ltd for the past 23 years. He appointed Roger Mears Architects to improve the earlier plans so they conformed to the Building Regulations. At the same time, he asked his structural engineer brother to justify his belief that the material used in the conversion should be concrete. The floor of the upper tank had to be completely removed as it did not coincide with sensible new floor levels, but the lower one could remain. Two new floors were to be built below it and two above.

At each new floor level, reinforcement dowels were set into the walls with polyester resin. Reinforcement was cut and bent on site and the concrete was a site-hatched Lytag mix of average cube strength 57MPa. This lightweight concrete was used primarily because of its better insulating properties since the new floors and wall would butt up to the concrete tower. It would also impose less dead weight on the supporting dowels and be lighter to pull up the tower.

Before concrete work began, the upper tank was removed by high-pressure water cutting. When the reinforcement was exposed, it became apparent that it had been bent on site as each bar spanned full width with bobbed ends into the wall. It could therefore be left in place, stiffening the top section of the tower until the new floor below was constructed.

After completion of the concrete work and fixing of new metal windows, the inner face of the tower was sprayed with SOmm polyurethane foam. The central shaft of the stairwell was filled with a glass block wall in a frame constructed from precast concrete columns and in-situ concrete beams. Around the bottom perimeter of the tower, an artificial Purbeck stone path was constructed in pattern-- imprinted concrete by Architectural Paving Systems.

There were two years between completion of the tower purchase to the finish of the conversion. During this period, an unwanted civil engineering concrete ruin designed by a leading 20th century architect and engineer has been restored and converted into a comfortable and interesting house.

Source: Concrete, Oct 2002 issue