Manton, Rushden, Northamptonshire (1961)

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 300,000 gallons. It's supporting cylindrical service shaft is of regular reinforced concrete. The tower was built for the Higham Ferrers & Rushden Water Board and can be seen under construction in the image on the right, reproduced with the kind permission of The Concrete Society.

The tower is located at SP 94130 66637 and the above image was the only full tower shot I could get, unlike this rather beter photograph, where the photographer looks to have had access to a neighbouring property.

Ferrers

Bye Bye Brightlingsea

Word has come to BWTAS that the water tower at Brightlingsea, Essex is being demolished to make way for a housing development.


Brightlingsea is better known for Bateman's Tower a folly built in 1883.

Demolition image from Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/petejk1994/5556440528/in/photostream/


We don't know when the water tower was built but the plans  in the Essex Record Office say it was designed by Broderick & Partners, civil engineers.

Minutes from Brightlingsea Town Council:

563. PLANNING APPLICATIONS:

The following applications had been received by Tendring District Council:

10/00743/FUL Roundwood Restorations, Brightlingsea Water Tower, Church Road, Brightlingsea – Demolition of the existing Water Tower and machinery replaced with development of 11 houses on the old Water Tower site, Church Road, Brightlingsea

Brightlingsea Town Council consider this application to be a great improvement on the previous applications and have no objection to this one but would like the District Council to take into consideration the following observations (that include representations of local residents):-

• The non hazardous removal of the Water Tower.
• There could be serious traffic problems due to car parking in Church Road.
• The sight of dwellings at three stories is too tall.
• The hedgeline should be lengthened along Lodge Road to the south western corner to improve landscaping and screening.
• The hedgeline along Church Road in front of the dwelling facing the road would improve the street scene, landscaping and improve the problem of overlooking.
• The nearby residents would like prior notification as to when this development is likely to start please.

Meare, Somerset (1953)

You may wonder why I am featuring this rather small, 122,000-gallon water tower. Last month it was reported on this site that Roy Rowe had died, although we are not aware of any direct involvement in any water towers, Mr Rowe pioneered the use of pre-stressed concrete as a building material. Meare was Britain's first pre-stressed concrete water tower, designed by Sandford Fawcett and Partners. It was built for Wells Rural District Council by the Vibrated Concrete Construction Company, in 1953. The tank, 37’ 5” in diameter and 23’ 9” in depth, is elevated by 80’ on eight reinforced concrete columns and a central service shaft. The tower is pre-stressed vertically and horizontally in the tank. The tank floor has eight curved sections radiating from its centre and is always in compression, enabling the floor to be only 6" thick. The roof and walls of the tank being pre-stressed too are also of 6" thick concrete. The tower can be found at O.S. Grid Ref. ST 46056 41175.

Further information on the construction of this tower and photographs of it being built may be found in issue 21 of Concrete Quarterly - "A village water tower of unusual construction". This is free to download in PDF format.