Every picture tells a story

Pondering on what to produce for our hosting of Mono Monday this month l l took inspiration from the fog on Friday and had a good editing session producing my own fog for this photo of the local Victorian water tower.  The tower itself was built around 1851 on a slightly raised hill, with the actual water tanks under ground (empty now a days).  It was built to service a local pauper 'lunatic' asylum (Victorian language) housing at one point up to 2,500 inmates, many of whom were social cases - women pregnant out of marriage etc.  The tower served to provide not only drinking water but for purposes of fire protection also, at one time 57 women died in a fire  within the asylum.  During the second world war the tower was bought back into use as a precaution if bombing raids disrupted other water supplies in the area.  7 huge tanks were also installed within the cupola of the main building and only removed when the buildings were decommissioned in the era of Margaret Thatchers 'care in the community' policy.  The tower's story today is  over 170 years old and now restored sits peacefully in the park providing me with the occasional blip!

Stories regarding water towers in asylums can be found below.

https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/news-and-features/blogs/detail/history-archives-and-library-blog/2021/08/20/asylum-water-towers


https://www.barnet.gov.uk/libraries-old/local-studies-and-archives/pocket-histories/finchley-friern-barnet-and-totteridge-0