City of Nottingham Water Department

The City of Nottingham Water Department (1912–1974), formerly the Nottingham Corporation Water Department (1880–1912), was responsible for the supply of water to Nottingham from 1880 to 1974.

The original Nottingham Waterworks Company, was established in 1693, extracting water from the River Leen by means of a water engine with a large water wheel. The difficulty of pumping water to the higher parts of the town took many years to resolve. Two reservoirs were created to increase the supply of piped water to the town.

Another company, the Zion Hill Water and Marble Works was formed ca.1790. It drew water from two wells near Alfreton Road and Canning Circus using steam engines which also sawed marble and powered some lace machines. Part of the supply was piped to houses in the town. It had ceased to function independently by 1824.

The Nottingham New Waterworks Company opened new works at Brewhouse Yard and Scotholme Springs (Basford) in Sherwood in 1826.

In 1828 the Trent Waterworks Company was formed and in 1831 a new waterworks was opened at Trent Bridge. The impetus behind the improvements was the engineer Thomas Hawksley working for the Trent Waterworks Company. It extracted water from the River Trent and filtered and pumped it, delivering Britain's first high pressure 'constant supply', preventing contamination entering the supply of clean water mains.

Writing in 1935, J. Holland Walker reports

At the northern end of Trent Bridge, about on the site now occupied by the Town Arms Hotel, stood the old water works of Nottingham, which were such a charming feature of the landscape forty or fifty years ago, but which have now completely disappeared. A tall brick chimney, mellowed from its first rawness by age, and a grove of well-grown trees marked the old pumping station. There was a great settling tank, or reservoir, receiving water from the river Trent, which reservoir occupied both sides of the road, and a faint echo of which remains in the gardens between Messrs. Turney's works and the river. After this water had passed the filter-bed it was pumped to the reservoir on the eastern side at the upper end of Park Row. For many years this reservoir was open, and surrounded by trees, and was an extremely picturesque object, but some forty or fifty years ago it was covered over by a great concrete roof, which has remained until 1925, when it was broken with considerable difficulty, and the site devoted to the erection of an out-patients' department for the Nottingham General Hospital. These waterworks at Trent Bridge and also the reservoir on Park Row, were erected in 1831, and we are informed that the water was forced through the mains from Trent Bridge by an engine of forty horse power, at the rate of ten hogsheads per minute. The reservoir is a hundred and thirty feet above the Trent, and in 1850 the water distributed from it through about twelve miles of pipe to the neighbouring districts.

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