Wigan Album
Neighbouring places
6 Comments
Photo: Rev David Long
Item #: 30871
A steam engine was housed in the building to the rear - lifting water with a chain of buckets from the well below. This was eventually replaced by electric pumps.
The tower eventually became redundant, and was demolished - despite being Grade 2 Listed - because it was structurally unsound, in the late 1970s.
Scanned from an unused postcard.
I believe that this artesian well supplied Ince with water.
Hi Rev.David, I remember this water tower very well in the
1960s and 1970s when returning home in the lorry from some
far away location,particularly in duff weather, having been
away for a couple of days to Brighton, Portsmouth,or Truro,
and many other places on the South Coast. A welcome sight.
I can't remember it, but was told that a tall water tower was at the rear of Billinge Hospital which too was a local landmark, I know there was a well in the old boiler house from which water was once pumped, a house will likely be over that now.
If it lifted water from below ground with bucket chain, presumably it also had some other pumping system to then propel water to the tank atop the tower.
Passed this daily for 3 years while attending Padgate College in the mid sixties and was a reminder of where I had a lucky escape after being forced off the M6 by a reckless driver in 1964.
I have never heard of, so won't know anything about this iconic water tower located in Newton le Willows, but remember the Parkside colliery tower. There is a famous water tower just outside Ormskirk that looks like a flying saucer, and also Blackpool has a round water tower in the Layton area.