1930s water tower, Latchingdon water tower, Lower Burnham Road (EHER 40771)

A redundant reinforced concrete water tower built during the 1930s in modernist style. It is built on the site of a pre-1920s square water tower which was associated with a pumping station to the West of the site. The water tower is now a house.

March 2008. Heritage assessment. A redundant reinforced concrete water tower built during the 1930s, following the Rural Supplies Act of 1834, which channelled Government money into the under-invested rural water supply network. Map evidence suggests a pre-1920s square water tower stood on the same plot, probably built at the turn of the century and associated with a pumping station to the West of the site. The water tower was replaced by the present one and the pumping station has since been demolished. It is typical of the modernist style of concrete water towers built en masse during the 1930s, the earliest surviving one in Essex being the Maldon one, built in 1934 (EHER 15607). It has a raised circular tank supported on concrete columns and a central core, used for pipes, machinery and access to the roof, where inspection hatches were located into the tank. Few internal features remain. Although part of an established form, concrete water towers of the 1930s were given individual designs and proportions, creating an interesting and important architectural group, a rare feature of pre- and post-war industrial building types. <1>