Suffolk Water Tower under construction in 1953

© Copyright Michael Smith and Linda Woodward, reproduced by kind permission of SARA Strabroke Village Archive

The above image was taken by the prolific photographer Geoffrey Smith in 1953. Much of his work has been made available by the Stradbroke Archive & Record Association on their web site. Unfortunately we don't know which water tower it is being built — it was labelled “Fressingfield Water Tower 1953”.

The smaller 100,000 gallon water tower at Fressingfield, was built in 1955 and is a slender tower with central a service shaft and 12 legs… There are three water towers in Suffolk, of the design shown under construction, all built about 1953: Dennington TM 27161 66726, Framlingham TM 29938 63491 and Blythburgh TM 45367 74244. If you can identify this tower, please leave a comment below.

Ferrers

Tower at Fressingfield

Raydon gets a new Roof !

The water tower at Raydon, Suffolk, recently received a new 2.7 tonne, aluminium roof, as part of an £800,000 refurbishment. The refreshing aspect of this refurbishment, is that on completion, it will return to use as elevated storage for potable water!

The 1954 reinforced concrete water tower, built by the then Samford District Council, had a steel roof that was no longer watertight. It is vital that the treated water stored inside the tower is protected from any possible contamination. It was decided that the best way to ensure this, was to replace the roof entirely and refurbish the whole tower at the same time. The 300,000 gallon steel tank within the concrete structure, also required its inside coating stripping off by shot-blasting and re-coating, prior to the new roof being fitted last Thursday.

The 50 foot diameter roof arrived as a kit – like a giant flat pack. Anglian Water’s contractors, @one Alliance, put it together in the carpark of the nearby golf course before hoisting it into position with a crane.

The tower, which serves 17,000 people in and around Raydon and Alton, has been out of use for about a year since it was found the old roof was deteriorating. The tower at O.S. Grid Ref. TM 04745 38111 provides storage to balance flows from the treatment works and security in the event of a failure as well as maintaining constant pressure.

Images and information kindly supplied by Anglian Water.

Ferrers

BWTAS Elveden Visit

A lucky few BWTAS members mustered outside the estate manager's office on Wednesday 12th October 2011 for a rare opportunity of a view inside the Elveden Estate's 1895 water tower. Set besides the magnificent hall, which is even more inaccessible to the public, this was a chance to examine one of the water tower crown jewels in its strong-room and velvet cushion of 23,000 acres of private estate. Whilst the interior rooms and architectural and engineering details were photographed, it was a condition of this visit that we didn't publish any of them.

The present owner of Elveden, the 4th Earl of Iveagh - Ned to his friends - is a descendant of the Guinness brewing family who inherited Elveden at the age of 21. The first house here was built in the 1760s by Admiral Keppel. But it was the Maharajah Duleep Singh who in the 1860s created a palace to pay homage to his Indian homeland and satisfy his passion for shooting. The maharajah's house was designed by John Norton. Singh had been deposed from the Punjab by the British and he gave, he said forever afterwards it was swindled from him, the Koh-i-Noor diamond, as collateral for the Sikh War. In recompense, Singh was granted a pension and he bought Elveden in 1863.

Duleep Singh left England in 1886 and died in Paris in 1893. Elveden was sold to meet his debts and it was bought by the 1st Earl of Iveagh in 1896. The vibrant colours in the hall were later whitewashed over as he used his Guinness fortune to remodel the hall and the estate. Father and son architects William and Clyde Young were commissioned to double the size of the hall, and Caspar Purdon Clarke – the director of the Victoria and Albert Museum and an expert in Indian decoration – designed the Indian Hall to link the old and the new.



At the same time, the First Earl modernized the estate, building servant blocks, laying out gardens and building the water tower and stable complex. The Elveden shooting parties were legendary and graced by royalty. After he died in Paris, on the orders of the Indian Office, Duleep Singh was buried next to his wife and son in the Elveden churchyard, now a place of pilgrimage for Sikhs.

The estate manager taking us round informed us the tower was built to both supply the estate grounds and the village; this is confirmed by its size. The homes that still receive water from the tower do so free of charge to this day. It was not deemed safe to go into the cupola over the tank but there is a ladder to reach it if you are agile enough to duck under the tank and prepared to encounter bird droppings. The square main tank is as usual constructed of flanged iron panels, bolted and bitumen sealed and has two compartments divided down the centre. Supporting ironwork (and no reason not to think the tank as well) was produced by Dorman Long of Middlesbrough who also built the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Beneath the tank room is a large room finished with architraves and mouldings as a drawing room with large sash windows framing views in each direction with balconies with now fragile balustrades. This delightful space has been used for shoot lunches and a lucky bride’s wedding reception. Beneath this room is a double height room of bare masonry sitting mid-way up the tower which contains a substantial chain hoist affixed beside stable doors opening to the outside. Without any evidence of machinery apparent, it would indicate that the room’s purpose is some kind of stores. During WWII the contents of the Iveagh Bequest at Kenwood House was moved to Elveden. Contemporary reports say the priceless paintings by Vermeer, Gainsborough and Landseer were moved into the basement of the hall but evidently some were also stored in the cool dark of the water tower. Surprisingly, very few water towers in the UK suffered from enemy action; their usefulness for enemy navigation outweighed the impact of directly attacking them.


The two floors below the stores level contains two apartments with Victorian wallpaper still extant. These rooms are above the ground floor pump room (or a former pump room) which was inaccessible by virtue of our guide not having the right keys. The first five levels are all accessed by a windowed internal stairway of stone steps. Beside the tower there are some outbuildings forming a courtyard which were apparently a workshop, foundry and fuel store for the pumps. The chain hoist to the storeroom floor (corresponding with the ashlar bands on the exterior) would have been loaded from here.

The borehole that supplies this tower is 1.2 miles to the south, where a pump house and Braithwaite style water tower is located now at TL 82302 77685. We could not determine if that is the original borehole but it seems unlikely. Boreholes can dry up and it’s easier to move a borehole than a tower.

The tower is still used to distribute water by electric pumps located within the tower but the tanks are no longer used to provide storage and head. The tanks were decommissioned sometime in the last ten years due to algae being found in the water.

There was speculation in the party that the tower could be built of Elveden bricks, but we found the Elveden brick works producing the distinctively stamped red bricks that are used in the construction of the estate cottages was established in 1901, after the tower was constructed.

While the hall has been seen on the silver screen in a starring role in Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut and the action adventure Tomb Raider and the Bond movie The Living Daylights; the tower, not to be outdone, also has had a brief career on the idiot's lantern. The tower was the objective of the rival platoons during a war game in the classic BBC comedy Dad's Army in its Christmas Special: The Battle of the Giants.

National Register

TL 87 NW ELVEDEN ELVEDEN PARK 2/18 Water tower, 200 metres - south west of Elveden Hall - II* Water-tower, 1895 on plaque. About 20 metres high, square on plan. Eclectic in style, but with mainly Baroque details. Red brick, with limestone dressings at the upper levels. Battered base and 4 further stages, of which the 4th is dominant. The 3rd stage has flush horizontal bands of limestone ashlar, and the 4th stage has dressings strongly expressed in limestone. Windows in the Baroque manner; limestone architraves with keystones and moulded cornices. At the 4th stage is a large central window on each face, with a balustraded balcony on stone brackets; flanking flat pilasters support a moulded cornice and arcaded parapets with central Flemish gables. The doorway at the base has a semi-circular brick arch of several orders, with deeply recessed framed and boarded doors. Copper-covered cupola roof with weather-vane finial. Included as Grade II* because an exceptionally elaborate and imposing example of a Victorian estate water-tower.

The estate has over 10,000 acres under cultivation producing great quantities of grain, onions and potatoes. It is said that a quarter of Walkers' Crisps come from here and many of McDonalds’ potatoes and carrots. Other Elveden businesses include Christmas trees and team of six gamekeepers for looking after shoots and encouraging wildlife such as the stone curlews who nest in the onion fields.

The hall is opened rarely, usually for NSPCC balls and for events for the causes the Iveaghs support. The restoration is slow and painstaking and is being done without public grants.

The American Air Force requisitioned the hall in World War II to use as a headquarters – their stencilled office numbers and directions are still visible on the doors of some buildings. Other evidence of wartime ‘occupation’ is perhaps more unusual and interesting. On the estate (location withheld for their protection) is a grove of mature beech trees which contain WWII arborglyphs. These poignant reminders can also be found in the woods on Salisbury Plain and have been the subject of doctoral study. The most visible is the name (indistinct) Schultz Hollywood Calif April 20 1944. Naturally with many thousands of young men and women billeted at Elveden in wartime, some would choose to leave behind a permanent mark in case they never came back. 

Archaeologists of modern history are starting to study these arborglyphs more intensely because they can give a wide range of information about the individual who created them and their environment. This has led to a discussion about the importance arborglyphs are in both a military and non-military context. Arborglyphs are carvings that record poetry, names, dates and places, creating a record of human interaction with the landscape. Therefore military arborglyphs can reveal much about modern man in warfare from the material culture he leaves behind. 

Enquiries in California by BWTAS have determined that there were 44 males named Schultz living in Hollywood of military age in 1941 and it’s likely there are descendants or relatives still living there but it is not possible to narrow that down without access to US military records.

CAMP BLAINEY, E1veden Hall, Suffolk
RAF Station No: 116
Location: Four miles southwest of Thetford on A11
3d Bombardment Division (BAF), 13 Sep 43 to 27 Oct 45. Moved to Hanington, Oct 45. Re designated 3d Air Division, Dec 44.
Wings: 65th, 66th, 67th Fighter; 4th, 13th, 14th, 20th, 45th, 92d, 93d Bombardment
4th Bombardment Wing (8AF), Jun to 13 Sep 43. Moved from Marks Hall; moved to Bury St Edmunds, Sep 43.
Groups: 94th, 95th, 96th, lOOth, 385th, 388th, 390th, 447th
13th Bombardment Wing (8AF), 13 Jun to 13 Sep 43. Moved from Marks Hall; moved to Horham, Sep 43.
Groups assigned Sep 43
92d Bombardment Wing (8AF), 12 Dec 43 to 2 Mar 44. Moved from Polebrook; moved to Sudbury,
Mar 44.
Groups: 351st, 401st, 486th, 487th

For the visitor interested in military history, nearby is the Elveden Memorial, a grand 113-foot Corinthian column designed by Clyde Young and erected in 1921 and dedicated to the memory of local soldiers from the three parishes of Elveden, Eriswell and Icklingham who died in action in the First World War. Their names are inscribed on the base and a shorter list was added after the Second World War. Inside 148 steps lead to the top which is crowned by a mighty stone urn. Accessibility to the inside is unknown.


The future for the tower looks promising but by no means is assured. There is enormous potential in it. The Elveden Estate is passed by millions of vehicles annually travelling along the A11 which after years of consultation and deferment will eventually become a dual carriageway. Nearby are the attractions of Thetford Forest and Centre Parcs. The Elveden Estate run a range of quality shops and a coffee shop and restaurant stocked with their own produce that will rejuvenate the visitor. It is a short walk across the road from them to the church but the tower itself stands on private property.


www.elveden.com

Herringswell Manor and Water Tower - update

Ballance family at play

When clearing out the BWTAS cupboard (alright, it was a hard drive) I came across some notes I had meant to use to update the prior posting for Herringswell Water Tower near Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk.

View Larger Map 

Herringswell Manor is a large mock Tudor house built as a private home in 1901 on the site of the old manor. It was owned by Arthur Ballance [1851-1927] who made his fortune as the stockbroker Marnham & Co. while his wife's maiden name was Frean, as in Peek Frean biscuits. Their son Leslie Arthur was killed in the Somme in 1916.

Whilst by this time municipal water towers were commonplace in towns, in rural areas estates such as Benacre, Sandringham, Orwell Park, Kilverstone Hall, Elveden and Thornham Hall needed towers to supply the house and the home farm; typically from a borehole by a diesel or electric pump housed underneath. The upper stories and space below the tank could house staff or would be used for wine or root storage and in the case of Elveden; the priceless paintings from Kenwood House (the Iveagh Bequest) during WWII. Sometimes a room was created, naturally with a view, for game keepers to keep an eye out for poachers or to host shooting lunches. While the windows on the tank level might be dummy (we wish we could have a look inside) the cupola above and windows below the tank shows the Herringwell water tower follows this pattern. The shape of the tower is also reflected in the estate's gatehouse.

From about 1930 to 1948 Herringswell Manor was then owned by the Gosling family

Around 1948 the estate was sold to Miss Keyser of Aldermarston

In February 1956 R J Upton bought half the estate but not the manor house or the water tower.

In 1981 the manor and 14 acres was bought by followers of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and 200 orange robed sannyasin lived there as the Ashram Medina.

These new residents raised the population requiring, for the first time, the establishment of a Parish Council. After the Baghwan died the commune was wound up in 1985.

Then the house was bought by the Shi Tennoji school, a Japanese Buddhist boarding school which closed in 2001 because of falling numbers.

The manor house and ancillary buildings have been converted into luxury apartments which became available for sale in the summer of 2006.

Around 1959 the other half of the Herringswell Manor Estate was bought by Mr Weston-Evans, including the water tower.

About 1960 Mr Weston-Evans renovated Herringswell Manor.

About 1961 the water tower was completely refurbished.

In 1965 R J Upton bought the rest of the Herringswell Estate including the manor and water tower.

In 1966 R J Upton realised that all the horse boxes were too small for the modern horse and decided to install a pig unit within the water tower complex instead. The water tower itself was closed off and not used except for the ground floor area.

On 16th October 1984 the Herringswell Water Tower was listed Grade II, NGR: TL7194170997

In 2008 a complete refurbishment and conversion to 2 to 3 bedroom dwellings was completed.

 

The present agents for the water tower are Upton Suffolk Farms, Herringswell IP28 6SR and the owner of the business is Hugo Upton.

Elveden Visit

update 2/9/2011: visit now fully booked

Lord Iveagh has kindly granted permission for BWTAS to visit the Elveden Water Tower, a Grade II listed structure from 1895 and one of the most ornate and imposing examples of a Victorian estate tower in the UK.

Wednesday 12th October, 11.00am. Meet at the Estate Offices, London Rd, Elveden, Thetford IP24 3TQ.

Anyone planning to attend MUST let Wil Harvey know before on 01502 478248 or harveys@care4free.net ASAP, as the estate must have names beforehand. There will be no admission otherwise.

Booking priority is given to BWTAS members, then to the public. Space is very limited. We'll announce any changes and further information here and on twitter @bwtas. Non-members can join the society on the day.

Please note all the usual disclaimers apply: this is a industrial building not normally open to the public, it is not suitable for young children, there is no disabled access and the visit is at the visitor's own risk and subject to the directions of the Elveden estate.


For companions not interested in water towers, there is a shop and restaurant on the estate www.elveden.com

Park Road, Aldeburgh, Suffolk: Planning applications update

Built for a speculative land development that never happened and not as many presume for the Aldeburgh Hospital, Priors Hill Water Tower in Park Road has been disused since the 1980's. Northumbrian Water sold the tower at auction in 2007 for £407,000.

It's a great example, probably the finest locally, of an estate tower. Few 'public' water towers of this era anywhere else can match it for the quality of detailing and its aesthetic appeal.

Now in the possession of a Hertfordshire pharmacist, two planning applications have been made recently for conversion of the Grade II listed structure into a pair of flats. Naturally neighbours that were unconcerned about an uninhabited structure overlooking their property are now anxious about privacy and light pollution from the apetures cut into the facade and the additional cupola spoiling their vistas and so are mustering support for objections which have to be made by April 8th, 2011.

Further details see the original BWTAS blog post.

Historic Culford water tower for sale

Estate agents Bedfords have the Culford water tower near West Stow in Suffolk for sale expecting offers around £250,000. Their description says:

The water tower is a substantial red-brick water tower, believed to date from the late 19th century, with a former pump house and store. It has been granted planning permission for conversion to a residential dwelling and offers a rare opportunity for someone to acquire their own grand design project.

With its link to Culford School, its setting, views and historical connections, including the tank having been founded by the same company that produced the Sphinxes at Cleopatra's Needle in London, H. Young & Co, engineers of Pimlico, we expect a lot of interest to be shown in this exciting project. The accommodation, when complete, will comprise ground-floor entrance hall, large kitchen/breakfast room, two bedrooms and a bathroom; first-floor lounge and master bedroom with en suite; and second-floor sitting room. 

The tower once served the Hall at Culford (now Culford School). Permission was granted in July 2008 to the owners, the Methodist Education Trust, to convert the tower to a dwelling.

Henry Young & Co. was founded in 1871 and traded from Eccleston Iron Works, Pimlico, London 1873-1902 and then Hayle Foundry Wharf, Nine Elms 1877-1902. It cast everything from bridge girders to statues and was frequently commissioned by the leading artists of the day. Besides the sphinxes for Cleopatra's needle, it cast the lamp standards along the Chelsea Embankment. The firm remains in business and has moved to Norfolk where it now specialises in complex structural work. Website H.Young Structures

More details and photos on Geograph

House in the Clouds treading the boards this summer

BWTAS hears that the iconic water tower, Suffolk's very own House in the Clouds is to feature in the 63rd Aldeburgh Festival  running from June 11 to June 27, 2010.

A recreation of the 'house' part of the water tower cum folly will be combined with film projections to become an installation in Thorpeness as part of The Way to the Sea, an homage to Benjamin Britten and WH Auden's On this Island. The sets are being designed by architect and theatre designer Pippa Nissen who earlier designed the festival opera: Elephant and Castle.

The tower is also set to make an appearence to American audiences soon. BWTAS member Nat Bocking has recently supplied the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art images of the House in the Clouds and the Freston tower for its forthcoming exhibition Folly: The View from Nowhere comprising of hundreds of architectural follies from around the world. The exhibition is being curated by Los Angeles architects Escher Gunewardena and will run at the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles from December 6, 2009 to February 29, 2010.

UPDATE 24/6/10

Here is the Guardian review of the work at the Aldeburgh Festival
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jun/24/the-way-to-the-sea-review

Towers of East Anglia Art Exhibition

The Landguard Fort and warm evening sunshine welcomed over sixty people to a private view of the BWTAS sponsored exhibition; Towers of East Anglia.

BWTAS Chairman Wil Harvey (far left) gave our thanks to David Morgan (second from left) and the Landguard Fort Trust for their assistance with the show.

Wil welcomed our distinguished guests; Felixstowe's Mayor Councillor Angela Goodwin and her husband Councillor John Goodwin.

















Left: Pastels and photographs of New York City water towers by guest artist Dorothy Koppellman, who has studied water towers in her native USA for nearly 30 years.

Towers, with their visual impact, always inspire feelings of awe and curiosity.





The exhibition shows over 90 works by twenty artists with a common interest in depicting architecture.

Artists exhibiting include Clare Johnson, Mark Beesley, Joan Sandford-Cook, Sandra Rowney, John Barham, Charles Nightingale, Alan Wright, Dorin Elvin, Elle Thompson, Kate Coleman, Michael Norman, Liz Klotz and others.

Most of the works are available for purchase.

Right: An installation by Alfie Sheppard, a recent graduate of Norwich University College of the Arts.

Alfie has lately secured a six month internship with an American sculpture studio.








A wide range of BWTAS merchandise is for sale.











A full catalogue will appear online in due course. Meantime, the exhibition runs until Sunday July 19, 2009.

More Info

The Benacre Water Tower Family

A few weels ago Cilla Gosnell contacted BWTAS asking for information about the WT on the Benacre estate in Suffolk (close to the BWTAS HQ) because she believed her grandfather had worked there and lived in the tower with his family. We sent her the information we had and she has been kind enough to report the fascinating results of her research. If anyone has anything to add, comments via the form would be very much appreciated.

Two weeks ago I was on a cycling holiday based at Wattisham in Suffolk, but decided to 'take a day off' and go by car to Benacre to see if I could find the water tower as I'm rarely in that part of the world. I didn't contact you - or the Benacre Hall owners - beforehand, being unsure which day would be most convenient for me, but did take a print-out of your e-mail to establish my credentials just in case I was challenged by anyone in authority!

From your website, I was able to pinpoint the position of the tower on the OS map. Approaching on foot from the northern end of the park - and prepared to find no access at all - we were pleasantly surprised to find permissive paths, indistinct on the ground but leading in roughly the right direction until we suddenly spotted the tower looming among the trees. For me it was a somewhat weird experience as I don't think anyone in my family had ventured there for nearly a century and the parkland - and lodge buildings we'd passed - were totally deserted. The location of the tower seemed very remote but presumably there would have been better - or more-used - access at one time and I'm pretty certain there was a 'cottage garden' where nettles and brambles are now.

Returning home after my holiday, I found the old photograph of my grandmother Catherine Hughes (who died years before I was born) with my father Selwyn and uncle Kenric outside the tower in about 1907 and another of my grandfather (photographed - I think - before he was employed at Benacre although the caption says 1909).

Hughes family at Benacre Hall Water Tower, 1906 – 1910

During the time that my grandfather George Hughes was employed by the Benacre Hall estate – about a hundred years ago – the family lived in the water tower.

I believe that my grandfather worked on electrical installations and/or pumping machinery; previously he’d been employed for some years at Trentham Park, Staffordshire and at The Lee Manor estate in Bucks, from where the family moved to Benacre in 1906 or 1907. As the date in the tower brickwork is 1902, it would have been a very new building at the time.

The picture of him is the only one we possess but I don’t think it was taken while he worked at Benacre. I guess he was born in the 1860s (as my father’s older sister was born in 1891) so would have been in his 40s when he was at Benacre.


Correspondence at the time was addressed to my grandparents at ‘The Tower’ so I presume there was living accommodation there. I had once supposed this might have been in an attached building rather than in the tower itself but a recent visit to the tower (May 2009) showed no trace in the brickwork of there ever having been any adjoining building.

The photograph of my grandmother, Catherine Hughes, with her two little boys – the older one, Selwyn (my father) and his younger brother (my Uncle Ken) – shows part of the tower and the windows at first-floor level appear to be open as though the building is ‘lived-in’. It looks as though the middle section would have had room to accommodate a family with the water tank above and the machinery below. However I know nothing about the internal layout of water towers, but would be very interested to know how it was arranged. There’s no sign of any chimney, but Google Earth shows some unidentified details in the roof, which might have included a vent of some sort.

The sheer bulk of the tower amazed me, especially as I’d been told of the occasion in family folklore when my uncle (aged 3 or 4?) had managed to climb up it and ‘walk round the top’ – presumably on the ledge just below the top. I wondered whether there would once have been metal ladders/staircase outside allowing access, or maybe there was a way up from inside the building. Onlookers were apparently horrified but – wisely – didn’t call out for fear of startling the child, who made his way safely down.

(Some towers of this size had living accomodation or offices placed between the pump room and the tank, as in the Southwold WT, but living in a water tower could be both noisy from the pumps and damp from the condensation from the tank. To utilise 'waste' heat from the pumps; it could be vented through the tank to prevent the water freezing. Access to the roof and tank would be typically inside the tower, usually through the center of the tank that was arranged in a ring - Ed. )

Really we know very little about the family at this stage of their lives. My father, who was born in 1903, started school at Wrentham: we have a photograph of him on his first day there. George Hughes was a keen photographer and did his own processing. It’s also thought that he did some decorative wood carving for Benacre Hall. He was quite an accomplished oil-painter though I think his pictures were mostly copies. My father told me of an incident when his mother – in a rage – had kicked at one of her husband’s paintings tearing the canvas. We had that picture in our living room when I was a child. Learning – recently – that there was a fine collection of original paintings at Benacre Hall, I wondered if that was a source of inspiration.

Anyway life at Benacre seemed to come to an abrupt end around 1910 when my grandfather left his family and went to New Zealand. I don’t know whether his work at Benacre was completed or exactly why he left. It’s been hinted that he’d been involved with a young woman, perhaps somebody employed at Benacre Hall. However letters that he subsequently sent from NZ to his young sons suggest that he’d gone there alone and hoped his family would follow but they didn’t and returned to The Lee, Bucks. I believe (from what little I was told) that he was possibly a heavy drinker and left debts behind him. I’m inclined to think he went to NZ seeking both escape and better-paid work but don’t know if he ever sent money home. Consequently he was regarded as the ‘black sheep of the family’ and it seemed to my brother and me and my cousin that there was a conspiracy of silence about him and questions were discouraged.

Now we are trying to fill in some of the gaps!

Cilla Gosnell (nee Hughes), May 2009

Gong forever

Melissa Pionzio, a journalist and blogger for the Hartford Courant in Conneticut USA, has reported the demolition of the Gong Bell water tower in swanky East Hampton CT. Local teenagers, doubtless driven by raging hormones, were often inspired to scale the tower to graffiti messages to the person of their desire. Resident Tracy Kemp added that the water tower lasted 25 years longer than Billy's declared love for her.

The loss of this tower was also recorded by a local photographer R J Phil who noted on his blog "I wonder how many people will even notice that it is gone? When you see something every day, it becomes a part of the landscape of the town; a symbol of the manufacturing history that once was...

At 1:30 today they held a "ribbon-cutting" to begin the demolition of the Gong Bell water tower. The Gong Bell Co. made toys with bells in them during the early and middle part of the 20th century, many of which are very collectible now. East Hampton was (and is) known as "Belltown, USA", due to the number of companies producing bells here beginning in the mid-1800's. The Bevin Bros. Mfg. Co. is the only one left in East Hampton (and the the US) now, still producing fine bells after over 150 years.I know that the tower is old and unsafe, I understand the liabilities involved - BUT - I would like to think that the ceremony is a send-off for the landmark, rather than a "good riddance" to something that once stood as a monument to manufacturing in East Hampton, and the US in general. Having grown up here and seeing the tower every day, I will miss it, for it is one more thing from East Hampton's past that has gone the way of the bulldozer. The tower has looked over our town for almost 80 years and has seen a great deal of history come and go - the last train through in 1964, the fire in 1973 that burned down the Gong Bell factory and the commercial expansion and residential development that changes forever the small towns these sentinels protected. Rest in peace. "

Over 30 bell foundries once existed in East Hampton. Gong Bell Manufacturing Company is credited with inventing the first toy telephone and the first foot bell ever used.

The tower had been maintained for fire safety after the factory had closed but the town council now believe "the tower is no longer necessary for fire suppression," said town council chair Melissa Engel in a speech at the demolition ceremony. "Because we now rely on modern day pumps."

It has to be asked, as it can be shown, what if these electric pumps fail? The widespread flooding in the UK in 2008 knocked out electricity substations that drove water pumping stations, causing complete havoc in fire prevention and public health. The beauty of water towers is that gravity never fails to deliver water to anywhere below where it is stored.

Pork Pie News

It's a really perfect title for a blog. For those unfamiliar with English idioms, 'pork pies' is rhyming slang for 'lies' but I don't doubt its veracity though as it really concerns itself with pork pies. These are delicacy for which East Anglian pig farmers excel at providing the contents for.

The pie master himself is Ferrers Young who is a frequent face at BWTAS meetings and our official archivist and data manager, so obviously we can't be keeping him too busy. Each entry concerns itself with a walk with fellow pie munchers, often to a pub, a pie review carefully scored and weighted and the occasional water tower along the way. We knew he couldn't resist them. Visit it here.

The image is of the 1953 water tower at Hinton Lodge, otherwise known as Blythburgh just off the the A12 in Suffolk. The pigs belong to Blythburgh Free Range Pork. This tower has identical siblings built around the same time in Framlingham, Freston and Dennington.

Herringswell Water Tower

Image © Tony Wilding for Images of England

BWTAS has been asked to remove the contact details for this tower as it is now let to a private tenant.

The once dilapidated but now beautiful estate water tower at Herringswell Manor has been converted into a unique two bedroom detached apartment of approximately 224 m² (or 2411 ft²) with access to the court yard and views over fields and a horse stud from the living room at the top of the tower.

Herringswell Manor has had a variety of tenants in its history. It was once a medina for the devotees of the Baghwan Shree Rajneesh. It was later taken over by an award winning property developer.

The tower is close to Herringswell village about 3 miles from Mildenhall.

The National Monuments Record has these details:

IoE Number: 275773

Location: WATERTOWER AND FLANKING COACH HOUSES, 320 METRES EAST OF HERRINGSWELL ROAD HERRINGSWELL, FOREST HEATH, SUFFOLK
Date Photographed: 16 August 2003
Grade II listed

C.1907, built to serve Herringswell Manor, the estate of A.W. Ballance. The lower stage of the tower is of red brick, with grand central entrance gateway; moulded and hood-moulded 4-centred arched opening of terracotta with pair of boarded doors. Above is a 4-light window with leaded casements. Above a moulded brick cornice, the upper stage oversails on 4 sides, with exposed joist-ends and diagonal beams on brackets; walling and gables of half-timbering with rough-cast infill. Plaintiled swept pyramid roof in 2 stages, with a set- forward gable at the upper stages framing a clock with bell above. Weather-vane finial. The flanking coach-houses, gable front, with similar arched doorways. Included for group value. The timber-framed and weather-boarded ranges to rear are not of special interest.

Orwell Park School Water Tower

Orwell Park was once the home of the wealthy Victorian luminary Colonel George Tomline [1812 - 1889]. Tomline was an MP and was elected unopposed several times in rotten boroughs which then were commonplace. Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel once said the cleverest men in England were Tomline and his schoolfriend William Gladstone, in that order.

Tomline never married and his wealth, house and grounds were devoted to his patronage of the arts and sciences. He had one of the finest art collections in England including works by Holbein and Murillo and he built up a great library with many first and rare editions.

He purchased the 30,000 acre estate around 1848 or 1850 from Sir Robert Harland. He had the original house demolished and replaced with a red brick Italianate design, the grandest of three plans submitted to him. A rejected design is displayed at the school that now occupies the house. Over the years Tomline purchased vast areas of adjoining land including most of the Colneis Hundred to create the port of Felixstowe.

The house and the water tower were built between 1868 - 1873, firstly by eminent architect William Burn but after his death, most of the design is the work of his successor John MacVicar Anderson. His notable buildings include the mansions of Althorp, Brampton & Blankney Hall, Cheswardine Hall, Iden Manor and many commercial buildings including Coutts Bank in the Strand, the Carlton Club, the Royal Scottish Hospital and Royal Caledonian Asylum. He was president of the Royal Institute of British Architects from 1891 to 1894.

Tomline was a keen astronomer. The water tower is matched by a clock tower and an observatory tower which still has a 26 cm refractor, at the time the largest telescope in private hands. The water tower powered a hydraulic lift to the observatory.

Tomline was thought foolish at first to buy the estate when it hadn't got a reliable water supply (all the wells had turned brackish) but a spring was found in the woods a half mile away from the house. Along with the water tower there were filter beds which fed an underground reservoir and then an electric pump raised the water to a 10,000 gallon tank. From there it was fed to 26 tanks in the roof of the house.

The water tower had been in use up until recentlyand the tank is still intact. When the water supply to the school was switched to mains pressure, a number of leaks suddenly sprang up throughout the school. There's a saying "if it ain't broke...." When visited by BWTAS during the making of an episode of BBC Radio 4's Making History programme, the tower was being used for storage and housed the Ham Radio club. There are, as expected, stunning views from the top.


The school wonders what to do with the tower but are considering turning it into visitor's accommodation which could be let out during school holidays at the going rate.

Photo of Col. Tomline http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~ipswich/History/Tomline.jpg

Sources: http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~ipswich/Observatory/Founding.htm

Water Towers and Music

In 2007 the cult indie band British Sea Power came to Freston near Ipswich to record songs for their next album and shoot a video in the 1950's water tower there. They discovered that it had unique acoustic qualities, like a cathedral, with a sixteen second reverberation. Apparently they found the tower for rent on the internet. The former owners had tried for years to attract investment to convert it into a recording studio before they sold it on to a developer who now hopes to build apartments there. Those plans look interesting. They will have a fantastic view over the Orwell River and have a roof garden where the tank was.

Water towers have influenced many musicians. The American harmonic overtone singer Jim Cole records in a 120' tall metal water tower. "Because of the heavy reverberation, utter silence and pitch blackness offered, singing in a water tower was ideal..." he says.“You hear everything in super slow motion,” and as metal towers can be made to resonate and become an instrument as well, he found in his tower there was between 20 and 30 seconds of reverberation.

In Seattle, the Volunteer Park Water Tower was made into a 'sonic installation' by an outfit called Audible Semaphore
who composed pieces to accompany the views from the top of the tower. This tower, although not particularly distinctive architecturally, is a very popular tourist destination and a cultural landmark for residents.

In 1975, the first album released on Brian Eno's Obscure record label was Gavin Bryar's 'The Sinking of the Titanic' which was recorded in a Napoleonic water tower in Bourges, the atmospheric effect o

f the tower's acoustics adding greatly to the watery themes of the music, according to critics.

Do you know any other instances of music made in water towers? Please get in touch.

Water towers and wildlife

There are bat boxes in a number of water towers in the UK placed by the Bat Conservation Trust. Now it seems if Suffolk's water towers can have a role in increasing the population of peregrine falcons which are wonderful birds that keep the pigeon population in check. Pigeon droppings and corpses are a real nuisance in water towers. Even though they can be kept out of the water itself, it's a foul job cleaning up after them with access quite difficult in these circumstances. So if falcons can keep the pigeons away, they are very useful to water tower keepers.

The Suffolk Ornithologists' Group helped provide a nestbox on the Orwell Bridge in the 1990s and with that success, is now planning to expand the scheme across the county. It is looking for sites and approaching owners of water towers and other tall structures where the birds can nest undisturbed.

Priors Hill Road Aldeburgh

This is the Priors Hill Road water tower in the grounds of AldeburghCommunity Hospital, Suffolk. Once owned by Northumbrian Water, few details were known about this 1870's Victorian tower but compared to others in the area, it's detailing and build quality is exceptional and worthy of note.

It had been disused since the early 1980's and was becoming dangerous as lumps of masonry started falling off. Then it changed hands in April 2007 for £407,000 (more than double the expected price) at auction which was a surprise to many as it has no planning permission, is Grade II listed and has no right of way but it would make fantastic second home and being Aldeburgh, that is cheap for what could be a six bedroom house on a private road with views for miles around.

BWTAS would like to hear from the owners if they would like to make themselves known to us with complete confidence of their privacy.