DERELICT PUMPING STATION AT COATE WATER

I had a bit of a headache when I woke this morning so after a lazy start to the morning decided to go for a walk on my own.  The sun was trying to break through, but there was still a chill wind so it was a good job that Mr. HCB decided not to come.  

When I arrived at Coate Water, a nearby country park, I was amazed to find the car park full to overflowing - and there were lots of people about including some idiots on bikes who thought it was funny to do wheelies when they were passing people.  

I decided not to go near all the people, but to cut off down a path into the car park that would take me out of the country park and back home.  As I looked back towards the lake, I could see this derelict pumping station, which I had never seen before.  I took several shots before walking towards the roadway, and was given a strange look by someone sitting in a JCB.  I daresay he wondered why an old lady was taking photographs of the pumping station, but as he never questioned me, I just strode past nonchalantly.  

When I got home and was speaking to Mr. HCB about it, he told me that the pumping station would have been to supply water to the Wilts & Berks Canal, and sure enough, when I asked Mr. Google, I found out that the reservoir, built at Coate Water in 1822 by diverting the River Cole, was indeed constructed for that purpose by forming a 70 acre lake.  When the canal was abandoned in 1914, Coate Water became a pleasure park, when changing rooms and a wooden diving board were added.  In 1935, the wooden diving platform was replaced with a 33ft concrete diving platform in Art Deco style.    

It is now known as Coate Water Country Park and is both a leisure facility and a nature reserve.  Richard Jefferies, an English nature writer, was born in 1848 at Coate Farm, which is now the Richard Jefferies Museum, where his family farmed a smallholding of about forty acres, so it was quite likely that he played near the lake and this very pumping station.  He also wrote “Bevis: The Story of a Boy” in 1882, a slightly fictionalised account of his life outdoors as a boy and in fact, the road we live in is named after that book.  It’s amazing what can be found out and what new things you can learn about your own town when doing research into a photograph. 

Thankfully, by the time I got home, my headache had gone, but I think a quiet afternoon is on the cards - Mr. HCB is listening to an audio book - well, he was - I think he is now sleeping!  

“Before a bridge is built, 
     or a structure erected, 
          or an inter-oceanic canal made, 
there must be a plan, 
     and before a plan the thought in the mind. 
So that it is correct to say 
     the mind bores tunnels through the mountains,
          bridges the rivers, 
               and con­structs the engines 
which are the pride of the world.”
Richard Jefferies : “The Story of my Heart.”

P.S.  Thank you for all your kind comments  on yesterday's Mucari and your understanding about me not commenting at the moment.  My hand is certainly better for not doing that much typing, and hopefully normal service will be resumed soon.