From the fanciful:
To the functional:
To the forgotten:
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Advice
I'm not a historian by training, but I've always taken notice of those everyday features in our towns and villages that typically don't make it into the guidebooks. Before the days of mass-production there was local variation in vernacular architecture: different styles of brick-work, stone-work, roofs and gables; chimneys; footscrapers outside front doors; pub signs; weather vanes and so on. All of these are worth a closer look.
In 2006 I started researching village pumps, taps, fountains and wells in the area of rural Wales where I grew up, and have written about them in another of my websites - http://www.machynlleth.info.
Subsequent contact with industrial history buffs (now there's an interesting group of people) led to my learning about the manufacturers of some of these pumps and then, on various trips away from home, I started noticing that there are redundant village pumps to be found all around Britain. As I've researched further, I've now identified the location of over 1780 pumps - but so far visited only a tiny percentage of these. Some are magnificent examples, fully renovated and given pride of place in their market squares or on their village greens. Others are in reasonable condition but largely ignored, except perhaps as a background feature. Yet others are totally forgotten, and languishing in a sad state of disrepair. Road re-alignments and village modernisation schemes are leading to the gradual loss of these fascinating relics from the past, whose purpose in life came abruptly to an end when mains water was introduced. I think we ought to be preserving them, or at the very least compiling a record of their locations, as a first step towards preservation.
It's very clear to me now that there's a growing interest out there in restoring Village Pumps, and it's encouraging that a growing number of you - individuals and Parish Councillors - are contacting me with a view to finding out how you might restore pumps in your villages. I don't yet claim to be an expert, but I'm learning a great deal.
8 May 2008
Redmarley, Glos. And more manufacturers. 4 May 2008 Haverthwaite and
Cartmel, Cumbs. 3 May 2008 Wicken, Cambs; Outgate and Near Sawrey, Cumbs;
Trethevy/St. Piran's Well, Cornwall. 2 May 2008 William Baily, Manufacturer,
London. 2
May 2008 Grasmere, Cumbs and Dunmore, Falkirk. 18 Apr 2008 Pump at Upton St. Leonard's,
Glos. 10
Apr 2008 Pumps in Cheltenham and Tetbury, Glos.Last updated - 12 May 2008.
Original photographs and text Copyright © 2006, 2007, 2008 R. K. Williams - exceptions where shown.