Stop 5: Water Tower-Information
The water tower built in 1899 once stood near here. The Clarke-Jervoise family, who owned Isdworth and much of the land in Rowlands Castle, paid for its construction, along with an engineer’s cottage. Water engineers Duke and Ockenden of Littlehampton built the tower for £5,297 and it provided water for the Idsworth Estate and Estate workers. Portsmouth Water Company, formed in 1857 supplied water as far as Rowlands Castle, but only to Redhill.
Water towers are a kind of mini reservoir and through gravitational pressure they can distribute water for a variety of purposes, at pressure, through water outlets (like taps). It is necessary for the tower to be at the highest point of its distribution network to function, as is the case here.
The water was pumped up into the water tower from the abundant underground supplies in the aquifer near Bedhampton. People in outlying farms not linked to this supply would use their own wells for their water. Wells were also used by some villagers who didn’t wish to pay for the water provided from the water tower. How much of a success it was is very doubtful. By 1905 the rental received from customers was less than £110, a figure that must be seen in relation to the engineer’s salary of £72 16s. However, the estate must have thought it worthwhile as it would appear that the water tower did supply the ever-growing village of Rowlands Castle until 1929.
This private provision of water, sat alongside an increasing provision from more public bodies such as Portsmouth Water Company. This supplier took over supplying water to Rowlands Castle in 1929 and the water tower ceased to function. The golden age of water towers in the UK was between 1860 and 1930, after which they became largely redundant as a result of people having widespread access to mains water. The worker’s cottage was demolished in 1930 and sometime later the water tower itself. A local resident remembers it still being there in the early 1960s.