Water, Sewage and Drainage
For many years this pump house stood on the village green near the rectangular tin pond. Both have since gone to be replaced by Birch Close.
In 1984 planning permission was sought to erect 2 dwellings with access to Burch Close on the ‘Pump Station site’.
In 1928 the press reported on council discussions about stowupland’s water supply. Having a mains water supply laid on in Saxham Street as far as Gyford’s Shop was opposed ‘because there was no provision for it go as far as Poplar farm.’ The Councillor went on to add ‘expense would fall mainly on the working man.’ At the time the water rate was 10s per quarter or up to £1 per quarter for dairy farms, although meters could be requested by farms that felt they did not use so much. The suggestion was made that everyone should have a meter installed but this was rejected on grounds of being too expensive.
In his unpublished manuscript “As I Remember It” the Rev Brame remembered as a child in the early 20th century pumping water up from a well outside Barn Cottages i…
‘It stood in front of the first Barn Cottage, the visible structure was a square wooden box about 8 foot high in an enclosure of palings. It ‘had a mechanism for drawing water up from a well fed by a spring over forty feet under ground. A long steel arm pivoted near the top of the box reached out almost to the fence, and had to activate a system of levers to provide the up and down movemnt of the piston which lifted the forty- plus feet of water and operated a valve and poured it into a bucket through a spout ditted with a hook. Even for an adult pumping the water was hard work….this was the only safe water for drinking and cooking, we had rainwater stored in a 400 gallon tank, and that was good for washing things, including us, but try drinking it –and it had a terrible taste.’
He did remember water being piped to their house in Church Walk, but does not give the date, he left Stowupland in 1940. Later ‘piped water came to s stand pipe inside our gate’ but in a hard-frost it froze solid.’
‘A few years later the waterpipes were hidden deep under ground, and the only thing that needed protecting from the frost was the stand-pipe leading to a faucet inside the house. Dad made short work of that by building a covering wooden box and filling it with dry sawdust.’
He does give more details about the vilage water supply (p83) ‘when the District of stow arranged for an artesian well to be sunk, at a highpoint on the village green, a windmill pumped the water over a carbon filter, and stored it in a high reservoir and reticulated it all over the village. When it reached our place, it has passed through about a mile and a half of mains piping, but still it left the tap with considerable force, he water board at first allowed us one stand-pipe per household inside the front gate, so we still had to carry drinking water by bucket into the house.’
Later his father got permission to ‘fix an underground pipe round to their back door, where he fixed another stand-pipe for use in outside work’ and made a hole through the wall to fix a tap over their sink in the scullery’. However though it gave good drinking water it was too ‘hard’ for washing so ‘soft water’ from their original rain water supply was still used for all cleaning purposes.
Sewage and drainage
1948, Council (Columbine) Bungalows
There had been ongoing complaints about ‘delay in implementing a sewage scheme for the council bungalows.’ part of the problem was because the bungalows had been build on concrete platforms that were 2 inches below the level of surrounding soil so water tended to accumulate under thefloor boards.
