Water Supply

The west end of our two parishes lacked surface water but had a good supply from wells. In 1831 a deep well, steam pump, and service reservoir were provided by a Waterworks Company alongside the canal reservoir in Edgbaston. Water was pumped thither from Salford Reservoir on the Tame, and the elevation of the site (520 feet) permitted supply by gravity flow to nearly all of Birmingham as it then was. By '53 piped water was available constantly to the whole of the west part of the Borough except the highest parts, and these were served from '62 by the reservoir off Hagley Road opposite the fountain at Sandon Road corner. This was subsequently covered over by the Corporation, which took over the Com-pany in '76, and it was rebuilt - the new one inside the old - in 1964.

Local supplies of water could not keep pace with the ever-growing demands of industry and domestic users : by 1890 deep wells like that at Harborne, and reservoirs on streams and rivers, were supplying 20 million gallons daily for distribution from Edgbaston, but this was insufficient. A shelved plan for water from Wales was looked at again and adopted. Work began in Cwmdeuddwr (Elan / Claerwen valleys) in '92, and twelve years later soft pure water began to flow in two 42-inch pipelines 75 miles to Frankley and Edgbaston. Except on Warley Heights and at Northfield, whither water must be pumped up to covered reservoirs, gravity flow supplies all parts of the city and region. Only the tower blocks need booster pumps.

Bartley Green Reservoir was made, 1928-30, to provide a week's needs in case of mains fracture. A fourth pipeline was completed in '61, and in celebration a model of the Cwmdeuddwr works was installed at Cannon Hill Park. The ornamental fountain in the Hall of Memory Gardens commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of Welsh water's arrival. Since '62 Birmingham's water has been fluoridated. Some supplies now come from Clywedog Reservoir, brought by the Severn to Trimpley where they are added to the system.
Many homes in the west of our parishes had piped water long before they had mains drainage. When the Borough assumed responsibility for sewerage in 1852 only 17% of its dwellings were connected to sewers, and these debouched direct-ly into watercourses. Even mansions on Hagley Road drained into open ditches beside the Turnpike. However by '77, when the Birmingham, Tame & Rea District Drainage Board was formed, with jurisdiction over most of the modern city, there were pipe sewers along main and tributary valleys leading to a sewage works at Nechells/Saltley. But the provision of flushing closets for all build-ings could not be completed until Welsh water ended the shortage.