| Sowan P W (2001). Park Hill water tower and reservoir drawings, Bull Croydon Nat Hist Sci Soc, 112: 7. |
Park Hill water tower and reservoir drawingsCroydon now has a full-time archivist, Steve Griffiths, and proper archive storage facilities. We have, therefore, deposited the following engineering drawings in the LB Croydon Archives, where they will be better cared for and more accessible than in our own Library: Croydon Local Board of Health - three undated coloured engineering drawings relating to the Park Hill service reservoir (Contract no. 5, sheets 1 - 3) showing plans and sections of this 40 ft deep domed brick structure. Croydon Corporation Waterworks - undated coloured engineering drawing of Park Hill Reservoir. [Croydon Corporation] - 1889 uncoloured engineering drawings of the water tower including section and details. [County Borough of Croydon] - 1954 and 1959 engineering drawings relating to war damage repairs showing details of repairs to the damaged turret and roof. It seems likely that these drawings were quite legitimately borrowed from the Borough's then Water Department by a former member and somehow never returned. Now that Croydon no longer has such a Department, and the reservoir has been partially destroyed and the tower gutted of its interior tank and pipes, we are pleased to be able to lodge these drawings where they rightly belong, in the Borough's archives. The spectacular brick domed roof of the reservoir was, sadly, broken and bulldozed into the main cylindrical brick tank by the local Council, and the void filled and grassed over (the mound is still visible beside the tower). In my early days as a very young Secretary to the Society I visited the interior of this splendid piece of brickwork, in the company of Brian Hillman (then Treasurer) using a wire caving ladder! Paul W Sowan |
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