Description

SJ416666NE TARVIN ROAD
1932-1/0/10010 BOUGHTON
17-MAR-06 (North side)
Control Room, Boughton Water Pumping S
tation

GV II

Also Known As:
Diesel engine house, Boughton Water Pumping Station, SPITAL WALK,
BOUGHTON
Former diesel engine house, now control room. 1913, with later alterations. Built for the Chester Waterworks Company. Pale yellow brick with sandstone ashlar plinth and darker brick and ashlar dressings, and slate roof. Italianate style.
PLAN: Rectangular building, sited immediately to the south of the water tower with which it was functionally associated.
EXTERIOR: Single storey; 4-window gable and 5-window side ranges. Banded ashlar plinth, brick cill and impost band, moulded eaves cornice, and coped pediment gables, round-arched arcades separated by pilaster strips. Doorways in the centre of the side with a round-arched fanlight above, and in the east gable with a moulded surround, and round-arched windows have glazing bars, with a round pane at the top; square ridge lantern has scrolled corner buttresses and a domed top. The east gable pediment contains a dated cartouche, the west gable incorporates a louvred oculus.
INTERIOR: The interior walls are finished in glazed tiling. The building retains 2 diesel engines for emergency power generation and electrical pumps, alongside added electrical control equipment. The roof is supported on tensioned metal trusses carrying 5 tiers of purlins.
HISTORY: The former diesel engine house and the associated water tower with attached engine house and boiler house forms the most prominent component of the former Tower Works, a river abstraction and water treatment works built for the Chester Waterworks Company in 1851-3. The complex was originally powered by a Cornish beam engine manufactured at Adam Woodward's Queens Foundry, Manchester. The site incorporated 3 sand filters and a brick-vaulted reservoir. The water tower was heightened from 70 to 84 feet in 1884 by jacking up the tank. In 1913, the diesel engine house was added to the complex. Other additions included a Davey horizontal steam engine, site offices and laboratory.
Forms a group with the water tower, boiler house and attached railings.(q.v.)

The former diesel engine house is of special historic and architectural interest as a key component of the former Chester Waterworks Company's Tower Works, developed in 1853 and subsequently altered and enlarged. Tower Works was innovative, ambitious and architecturally-distinguished design by a notable water supply engineer, and is well-preserved. The diesel engine house, added in 1913, sits alongside the 1853 water tower, engine and boiler house, with significant remnants of an early beam engine house and engine housing surviving alongside two C20 deisel engines and associated pumps. Ensembles such as this were at the heart of the newly-developed water supply systems of the C19, systems which significantly improved public health and enhanced the lives of millions by providing reliable supplies of clean drinking water.

SJ4190466638

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26670891

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)
• 
  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)