Water Tower, Easton

If you have ever driven to Norwich along the A47 from the west you will have noticed a tall concrete structure looming like one of H.G. Wells' aliens in the suburb of Easton. 



It's a water tower. If you are wondering what they are used for, I can tell you: they are for storing water. You can thank me when that comes up in the pub quiz. East Anglia's flat landscape means that if one was to create a reservoir it would likely be on a similar level as the houses that it was supposed to feed so, without enough gravity, there wouldn't be the pressure in the system for distribution without a lot of pumping. The solution in East Anglia was to increase the gravity by building water towers to store the water so that water could be supplied even in the case of a power cut.

The Easton tower is a brutalist design in reinforced concrete so probably originates from 1950s. In the photo at the top you can see three horizontal stripes where it looks like the concrete has had to be reinforced a bit more. They also help to give the impression of a  thin lipped, narrow eyed sentinel scanning the Eastern sky.

The tower belongs to Anglian Water who were up on a cherry picker looking at the tower when I arrived. I have no idea what they were doing but maybe i will hear about it next #WaterTowerWednesday on Twitter.

Its reassuring to know that Anglian Water are keeping an eye on it now that I know there are potentially 0.67M litres of water up there.

 

For the full Norfolk Corners experience I recommend listening to The Eve of the War from Jeff Wayne's musical version The War of the Worlds as an accompaniment.

Location: 63 Dereham Rd, Easton, Norwich NR9 5EJ, UK

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