Clophill Waterworks

The old water works February 2010

Bedfordshire's Histpric Environment Record contains details of all hstoric buildings and landscape features in the county. It is now available on-line as part of the Heritage Gateway website. The entry for Clophill Waterworks [HER 13890] notes that it was built in 1906 by Ampthill Urban District Council. The Urban District was solely responsible for the town of Ampthill, showing that Clophill Waterworks did not serve Clophill and its surrounding area but the town of Ampthill. The engineers, as noted on a stone plaque on the east gable end, were W. R. and W. Philips. The plaque also notes that the contractors were J. W. Dean Limited for the buildings themselves and the water tanks and C. Isler for the pumping machinery.

This attractive building is constructed of red brick with a number of windows, some with arched uppers while others are flatter, this is reflected in the doors. The door for people on foot to enter (above which is the datestone) has an arched upper, as can be seen in the photograph above. There is another doorway for cart traffic, at the east end, and this has a flatter upper but has now been bricked up.

The HER description notes that when the building was visited in November 1984 it had just closed down; it thus survived Ampthill Urban District by ten years. At the time of writing [2010] the tanks are used by The Scuba Academy to train divers.