| Water
1694 saw the first attempt to improve the water in Reading. As the town
was above the level of the rivers, water had to be either fetched by
hand from the river or found in one of the wells in the town. Since
the rivers had sewage from buildings higher upstream in it, and that
the well of one house migh well be next to the lavatory of the next
house, disease was easily spread. The 1694 project was pump in Mill
Lane to pass water to the Town Centre. The pump was not powerful enough
and the idea did not work. In the next century the idea was tried again.
This time a lead tank was placed in Broad Street. Water was pumped into
this and then passed by pipes into some of the houses. Unfortunately,
the intake for the pump was still down river from some of the sources
of pollution, so the water from the tank was not good to drink. The
pipes often burst and flooded the streets, so not many people used the
new system.
In 1818 William Cubitt a well known civil engineer was given the job
of improving the system. A new pump was installed to push water up a
high tower in Mill Lane and to a reservoir at the top of Whitley Hill.
This meant that the water could be fed to even the higher parts of the
town. The tower became a local landmark until it was demolished in 1901.
In the 1850’s there was still not a good supply of clean water
to every house. The Council bought the Water Company and built a new
water filtering works at Southcote Mill two miles upstream from the
town. Here the water was not polluted by any of the towns works or by
sewage. The water was filtered and pumped to a new reservoir next to
the Bath Road on the top of Castle Hill. In the 1870’s an even
newer water works was built at Fobney Lock.
In 1867 the Council finally decided to build a sewage works. Before
then sewage had either gone straight into the Kennet or gathered in
cesspools. The mixing of sewage and drinking water had led to outbreaks
of cholera as late as 1862. The town sewers ended at Blake’s Lock
pumping station, completed in 1875. The sewage was then pumped in pipes
up the River Kennet and Foudry Brook to Manor Farm near Whitley. There
the Sewage was used to fertilise the farm, which as a result grew very
good vegetables.
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