The design of Streatham Pumping Station was by James William Restler, M. Inst. C.E., who was an engineer to the Southwark and Vauxhall Waterworks company. Construction of the pumps was believed to have been completed by Messrs. James Watt and The Bedford Lemere daybook records the Holloway Brothers as an building ornate pumping station at Streatham.

Streatham Pumping House was built in the style of the day, with a domed and turreted neo-Byzantine pumping house and tall brick chimney stack in the form of a campanile. It is now a Grade II listed building.

The walls and railings which surround the site and the southernmost of the two gates are contemporary with the pumping station and in a similar style and using the same materials as the main building. The northernmost gate was probably built later, as it does not appear on early maps, but is still in the same style and in keeping with the rest of the site.

The very first pumping station was constructed in 1881 and housed in a corrugated iron shed. The location was chosen primarily because of the huge underground reservoir 1,000ft below the site, but also because of its rural location and closeness to the railway line. This to allowed easy transportation of coal to power the pumps needed to bring water to the surface.

In 1894 the Streatham Pumping station was built by the Southwark and Vauxhall Water Company, to serve the rapidly expanding suburb of Streatham. It was built above the original well at a cost of £13,489. It might have been even cheaper and a very different building if it wasn’t for the freeholder, Mr Thompson.

He was conscious that the original iron shed had been an eyesore and negatively impacted on the value of his adjacent land holdings. He therefore made a planning condition that it should be of an ornamental design and be subject to his approval. So, it’s him we have to thank for the building we see today.

In 1903 Streatham Pumping station became part of the publicly owned Metropolitan Water Board. It originally consisted of two steam driven engines each capable of delivering 1 ½ million gallons a day from the well into a 42inch main through which water was then supplied to customers. These two steam pumps were then replaced in 1943 by electrically driven pumping machinery.

Over the subsequent years the yield from the well deteriorated until it was no longer economically viable to use it as a supply source. But that’s not to say the pumping station fell into disuse. The equipment actually proved to be invaluable as a booster pump between the mains and Norwood Reservoir. And the original well sunk in the 1880s is still in use today as an emergency water supply, and is stored in a huge underground tank beneath the front lawn of the property.

Thank you to John Brown, Local History publications and Streatham Society for sharing their research.