July marked the 100th anniversary of the Brede Waterworks and its Tangye engines, which was constructed to raise the water supply for Hastings in East Sussex.
Alan Barnes was dispatched to the centenary celebrations.

There’s nothing unusual about a lady receiving a letter from the Queen when she reaches the ripe old age of 100, but there can’t be too many pumping stations that have received the same accolade.
It was all due to an innocent enquiry from a young girl visiting the Brede Waterworks in East Sussex. She remarked: “If that steam engine is a hundred years old will it get a letter from the Queen like my granny did?”

The comment prompted members of the Brede Steam Engine Society to contact Buckingham Palace and subsequently a letter duly arrived marking the centenary year of the 1904 Tangye Water Pumping Engine housed at Brede, near Hastings. The framed letter and a commemorative plaque were unveiled by Air Marshal Sir Frederick Sowrey and Mr Stuart Derwent the Managing Director of Southern Water Services Ltd. as part of the anniversary celebrations which were held at the waterworks on July 17/18.
My first reaction at seeing the imposing Victorian engine house was why on earth such a magnificent building would be required tucked away in a quiet valley among the rolling hills and woodland of the Sussex countryside? During my visit I spent some time with George Coleman, the society archivist, who has thoroughly documented the history of the waterworks. An ex-water department employee himself, George worked for many years at Brede and has published a very readable and informative history on the planning and building of the works at Brede and the engines which were used to raise the water destined to be used to supply the good people of nearby Hastings.
In 1890 Hastings Council was faced with the problem of meeting the increasing demand for water from the town’s growing population. At that time daily demand was around 900,000 gallons a day and although their sources could meet that need quite comfortably it was becoming apparent that new water sources would soon be required. Consultants (yes they have been around a lot longer than we thought!) had advised that some existing sources were in danger of contamination while the ‘safe’ sources from deep wells in the Ashdown Beds underlying Hastings would only provide around 770,000 gallons each day. The search began for additional sources and the Borough Surveyor P. H. Palmer AMICE made an extensive investigation into possible sites and made a recommendation that wells be sunk into the Lower Greensand structure at Glynde, near Lewes. This site had been previously identified by a consultant geologist, W Topley, in 1875.

The council acted immediately by appointing another consultant, G. Hodson, who produced a 24 page report in 1891 recommending wells in the chalk strata at West Dean near Lullington. However, yet another ‘geologist,’ a Mr Thomas Elworthy, was sure that his research showed that there was still ample and continuous supplies in the Ashdown Beds of the Brede Valley, a site which was much closer to Hastings and which would therefore be cheaper to exploit. It should be mentioned that Mr Elworthy was not a professional geologist, merely someone who had studied the Wealden geology. His trump card, however, was that he had been elected to the council in 1891 on the specific promise that he would prevent the adoption of the expensive Glynde scheme and upon joining the council was elected Alderman and Chairman of the Water Committee.
With the professional geologists now politically outranked and out-manoeuvred the surveyor, Mr Palmer, was instructed to begin his water explorations in the Brede Valley. Many years later the Borough and Water Engineer Sidney Little, by way of an explanation of the sorry state of Hastings’ water resources, was to observe “years ago the council, disregarding the advice given by the late Philip Palmer, adopted the proposals of an amateur adviser who was one of their members, and Hastings has suffered for it ever since”. Perhaps a case of ‘jobs for the boys’ going disastrously wrong and a lesson which all governments never seem to learn!

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