Eins, Zwei, Dry...

Kerry and Chris Hones are a British couple who possess a trio of extraordinary water towers situated in Nennig on the border of Luxembourg and Germany built around 1870. They found them as a complete ruin and have spent many years renovating them, keeping as many original features as possible, including a shaft into something that looked like a strong room which has become the cat flap. They admit they are nowhere near finished with the project but do what they can when they can.


Nennig sits right in the corner of Luxembourg, Germany and France and the Moselle area is stunning. BWTAS members visiting Luxembourg are invited to come and take a look. Kerry says the wine tasting is to be recommended!

They tell us they have had their share of successes and mistakes along the way but "it is such an individual project we have had to learn as we go." By contacting BWTAS they hope someone will come up with some interesting information about the tower as all the local archives were destroyed in 1945 during WWII. One of the towers looks very similar to the Settle renovation tower though theirs have been added to  over the years and one is now three stories high. Kerry says with justified satisfaction; "It has been a labour of love, immensely hard work and has involved doing many kinds of work I would never of dreamed I could do. He reflects that "too much Kevin McCloud can get you into all sorts of unexpected projects. We have become known locally as the Mad English Couple!"


If you can help, please get in touch with them at khones@pt.lu

Utscheid water tower for sale (now sold)

Post Script

In July 2011 ownership of the water tower was transferred to Dr Quintin de Jong, Dipl. Ing. 

Regular readers of this blog might notice we have featured a lot of German water towers. This is not by design, more an outcome that Germany in the time of its kaisers was on the cutting edge of water infrastructure, often employing British engineers, and now recognises their cultural heritage more than we do in Britain. There is more than one water tower society active on the continent.


One of our members has passed on a email from  Maurits and Saskia Campert, a Dutch couple from the Hague, announcing that their holiday home, a water tower in Germany's spectacular 'Eifel Country', near the Luxembourg border, is coming onto the market soon.


Their website www.watertowerutscheid.eu has all the details with interior and exterior photographs.


The database of cultural assets in the Trier region (auto-translated from German) says:


High above the valley located in the beautiful Eifel Utscheid village and standing on the highest level is a 16-meter-high circular water tower built in 1956 in red sandstone  by the district water company. Professor Oswald Ungers bought the tower for 1DM (while the land is on a renewable 30 year lease) and converted it in 1993 into an apartment and temporary gallery.  The tank and the mechanicals have been removed.


The Camperts sent along more details but BWTAS cannot accept responsibility for their accuracy:


Wasserturm Utscheid Buscht 
Water Tower Utscheid 
Château d'eau Utscheid Eifel 


Zum Wasserturm 1, 54675 Utscheid, RP. 


In the German Eifel at 15 kilometers from the Luxembourg border you find our water tower, which was bought in late 2006 by us from Professor Ungers. This is a monument, "Kulturgut” classified as a "Technisches Denkmal" in the Rhineland-Palatinate, Region Trier. 


It is ideal as a quiet retreat for two adults without children. 


Located at 320 meters altitude in the hills and only 200 meters from a forest in the municipality Utscheid with its 500 inhabitants.  All facilities are found nearby in Mettendorf (5 km.),  Neuerburg (10 km) and Bitburg (15 km.). Vianden (Lux.) and Echternach (Lux.) at approximately 18 km. 


The tower was built in 1956 (original building plans available) and served as a water tower until 1963. In 1993 it was converted into a house by Prof. Oswald Ungers of Cologne. 


The costs amounted to DM 200,000 (100,000 euros).


The tower is 15 meters high with 5 levels connected through concrete steps against the outside wall with 4 flights of 13 steps. It has a new slate roof. The tower is built of 70 cm thick red sandstone blocks. The outer diameter at ground level is about 7 meters and the inner diameter about 5.60 meters. The content is about 300 m3. 


On the ground floor is the storage room, guest toilet and central heating. On the second level is the fully equipped kitchen with two large steel windows. The next level has a view into the kitchen.


The fourth level is for the bedroom with 200 x 200 bed and bathroom with separate toilet. Here are two large steel exterior windows with hardwood double glazed windows inside. There is a Enev-Air ventilation system. The floors are separated by wooden folding doors. 


The showpiece is the 'tower room' with unrestricted views to 60 km in the four directions (e.g. on Golf Club Süedeifel and Segelflugverein Südeifel) by four large steel exterior windows with hardwood double glazed windows inside. The property is available fully furnished. 


The total floor area is approximately 80 m2. 


The whole tower is heated by a 24 kW boiler Vaillant 242E (suitable for 500 m3) with a buried gas tank of 5000 liters capacity and with cast iron radiators on all floors. Hot water is through the same system. When heated to around 10 degrees through the year, the consumption is about 3000 liters. The system is sufficient for continuous occupation through severe winters.


The tower stands on a plot of 200 m2 (17 x 12) with a lease from the municipality. The ground rent is 500 euros per year until 2023 and can thereafter be further extended for another 30 years for the same annual amount. There is parking for two cars. 


The other fixed costs (insurance, local taxes, etc.) are minimal. 


Sewage and telephone (DSL possible via  parabolic antenna) are installed. There is a paved road to the door. 


Buyers without chain only need apply. Because the sale concerns a monument, permission from the authorities for the sale must be obtained so need for a "good standing"  is inevitable.

Potsdam Wasserturm Bistro

The water tower at the main railway station of Potsdam, Germany is all that remains of what was Germany's largest reichsbahnausbesserungswerk (railroad repair workshops) or just abbreviated as R.A.W.

It was built in 1838 with the construction of the railway line between Berlin and Potsdam. The R.A.W. was the first German railway repair shop and over the years developed into one of the largest companies in Potsdam with the founding of the German Reich in 1871.

Potsdam 1930

After WWII, the repair workshops closed and were abandoned to decay. The construction of the new central train station began in 1997 when the old roundhouse was demolished but the old water tower, as well as some historical operating warehouses were protected and rebuilt. In 2007 redevelopment of the former RAW site started in earnest. The remaining buildings were renovated along with the historic train station and the water tower was converted into a café and bistro.


Wasserturm Cafe Bistro

Friedrich-Engels-Str. 99
14473 Potsdam
Tel.: (0331) 2011

Thanks to BWTAS member David Blackburn for sending this in. Though German WT seem to be all the rage on the blog at the moment, it's just because they can be like buses too.

Waddya Schwante?

John Ahouse, who frequently corresponds with BWTAS about items in the USA mentioned a small but attractive water tower he had seen in Schwante, Germany.


Image source 

Schwante is a small town about 15 km north of Berlin. It possesses a "palace" (more of a country house), a Dutch-type windmill, a church and this water tower among its modest sights.  Schwante's brief fame came about when human rights protesters gathered there in October 1989 to found an independent political party, the SDP.  As this was clearly illegal under the monolithic Communist regime, they were taking their chances. Their endeavour survived the fall of the Berlin Wall in November, however, and became the East German version of the SPD in the big political shakeout occurring over the next nine months.

Chancellor Helmut Kohl's CDU, the party in power in West Germany, drubbed all the left-leaning parties and splinter parties in the first free all-German elections that next year by promising prosperity for all. Thus the SDP was short-lived though the traditional all-German SPD is the #2 party in the Bundestag. Having played a role in the nascent freedom and human rights movement in the GDR is a good thing, nevertheless, to be famous for.

Local information (in German)

Sternschanze, Hamburg, Germany (1910)

We feature one of the three surviving water towers in Hamburg, that once boasted 43. This huge tower has been tastefully converted into the luxury Mövenpick hotel, with 226 rooms and opened on the 17th June 2007.

This water tower is currently the German international water-tower Society's "Tower of the Month" and features on the cover of the April edition of Der Wasserturm.

After the fire of Hamburg in 1841 destroyed the city, British engineer William Lindley was employed to rebuild the water system. In 1863 he built he subterranean reservoir in Sternschanzen Park that was decommissioned in March 1905. Between 1907 and 1910 the 189 ft tall, 105 ft diameter, octagonal brick water tower was built on the site at a cost of 697,000 gold marks. Designed by the architect Wilhelm Schwarz, it was at the time, the largest water tower in Europe. The tower contained two dished water storage tanks located one above the other. After World War II, when its roof was partially destroyed by bombs, the water tower returned to use but Hamburg’s water authorities stopped using the water tower in 1956 and it was finally decommissioned in 1961.

Ernest-Jo Storr from Munich, purchased the tower on 16th July, 1990 for DM 39,200. In 1993 Patrizia Project Development GmbH to came up with the proposed conversion of the tower into a hotel, designed by Falk von Tettenborn. The original roof was to be lifted off by crane, with the intention of re-using it. The steel roof was in too poor a condition and had to be dismantled. The internals were removed and a new reinforced concrete core was poured with a sliding shuttering at the rate of 5.5” per hour, over a period of 18 days. The floors made of pre-cast concrete, were then lifted into the tower, they are supported by the former supports for the water-tanks. Much of the Façade has been retained, the provision of emergency elevator, independent of the hotel’s power supply system, negated the need for an external emergency staircase. A new roof was rebuilt in concrete and steel, resembling the original roof, but with more windows. The conversion, incorporated the older covered reservoir, where the hotel lobby is now situated, took approximately two years. Located in Sternschanzen Park, a kilometre northwest of Hamburg’s city centre at 53º 31’ 53” North, 9º 58’ 14” East, capacity 1,000,000 gallons.

Photographs of the interior, from when it was still a water tower, may be found on the ALOYS KIEFER FOTOGRAFIE web site. If your web browser has the QuickTime Plug-in, some amazing 360º views can be seen at the 360º VR-PANORAMA site.

More German towers

In response to the posting on the Bocking's visit to Kevelaer on one of Ryanair's penny flights; BWTAS member David Blackburn sent in his pictures of a tower in Andernach (close to Koblenz so also accessible by Ryanair) which has an interesting past.

David is off soon to his Derbyshire home's twin-town of Sindlefingen in Germany where there are a couple of decent towers and he hopes to meet there Guenther Bosch, the dedicated enthusiast behind the Baden Wurtemburg water towers website.

As said here before, BWTAS is British in name but not British in outlook. We exist for people in Britain who are interested in water towers. Many German towers were built by illustrious Britons such as William Lindley.

It would be great to locate some examples in continental Europe of his work.

The Great Weeze Wheeze

Yesterday 06/08/08 Nat Bocking and his family flew to Germany because when Ryanair had a reverse price sale in June they found could fly to Niederrhein Airport (the former RAF Laarbruch) located at Weeze in Northern Germany for one penny each way. Yes, that is including the taxes.

There's a 7.15 AM flight out in the morning from Stansted and a 8.00 PM (7.00 PM GMT) flight back in the evening. The 50 minute flight time and a low volume of passengers at Weeze allows enough time for a day out in any of the surrounding towns and villages along the Dutch/German border. The landscape along the Rhine here is very flat and is dotted with wind turbines and water towers.

Ryanair advertise the route as Düsseldorf (Weeze) but Düsseldorf is over 70 km away but that's another issue.

In the town of Kevelaer, 10 km from the airport and accessible by a frequent and reliable shuttle bus service, they found this water tower in a residential area, just a few minutes walk from the centre of town and the train station. Built 1905, it is now converted into offices for the local water, sewerage and bus company. There is a delightful fountain (not shown) outside the front door.

It's not normally open to visitors but the staff were very pleased to hear of BWTAS and after some conversation they understood we had a genuine interest. They allowed us in to see some of the offices and a conference room, all recently refurbished, inside the tower but the tank room for now is off limits.

The plaque on the door says the tower is 54m high, has a capacity of 450 cubic metres and the tank was constructed on the 'Intze' system.

From the top of the 15m gantry of the 'Tyrannosaurus Rex' slide at the Irrland amusement park 7 km away, (also served by the same airport shuttle) the town's vista is dominated by the wasserturm and the church steeple.

More than 800,000 pilgrims, mostly from Germany and the Netherlands, visit a shrine to the Virgin Mary in Kevelaer every year. It has many other fine buildings and plenty of restaurants and good museums and good rail connections with half-hourly service between Krefeld and Düsseldorf. It is also twinned with Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, UK.

Thanks to the German Watertower Society for the information that Kevelaer had a water tower.









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Something for children

It seems that it is no longer on the original site but here is a drawing of a water tower that you can download (click on image) and colour in. There at lots of others at edupics.com




It looks a lot like a continental tower, something like you can find at Kevelaer in Germany which coincidentally is twinned with Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk.












Here's some that were coloured in by visitors to the water tower art show.

Langeoog Water Tower

Some time ago a correspondent sent BWTAS a postcard of a water tower they had picked up on their holidays. They hadn't seen the tower but thought it was nearby. The card didn't name the tower and no one here had any idea where it was but now it turns out to be in Langeoog, (its name means 'Long Island') one of the inhabited Frisian islands in the southern North Sea belonging to Germany. Maybe this is a case of mystery marketing; "this is wonderful, don't tell anyone" is an effective tourism pitch.

Its clean air, low in pollen and particulates, made Langeoog very popular in the 19th Century as a health resort. The 1908 tower is the island's symbol and a tourist attraction. Living on what is not much more than a big sand dune in the ocean, fresh water is evidently precious to the residents. This tower is a European example of what is common in the USA of a water tower becoming the town's symbol and appearing on all its marketing materials and civic insignia.

Cars are not allowed onto the island and with its miles of deserted beaches, open skies and water sports, Langeoog is still a popular holiday destination which is why many photos of the tower appear on sites like Flickr. The rapidly changing light and weather reward the patient photographer. If you want to see what it's like now, there's a webcam pointed at it here.