Winteringham Local History and Genealogy at winteringham.info

The Village Pump, & Water Supplies

Left:

The Village Pump, at the corner of Cliff Road, Back Lane, High Burgage and Winterton Road. 

Note: There is a photograph of the ‘unveiling’ ceremony of the pump, and another of Mr Cordeaux the mayor on the North Lincolnshire County Council website photo archive.  Please see the ‘Links’ page to go to the archive on their site.

Geology at Winterton Holmes

Left: Mr Alan Burkill enjoys the July sunshine by the pump in 2004.

Right: The plaques on the pump, the pump was originally erected in 1911

38’ brown marl clay

But Winteringham's water supply goes back much further than 1911. The Romans are thought to have used the Chalybeate Spring (pictured right) close to Tranymere Corner - though there were three Roman wells found virtually on Tranymere Corner, and archaeologically excavated. The water from this spring supposedly had properties beneficial to health, and Dr Stukeley remarked that it was unusual to find fresh water such as this ‘so near an arm of the sea.’

This was just one of many springs in the village - Spring House even being named after its own! There were other springs, some of which have long been piped in, for instance in gardens on Marsh Lane, and in the north eastern corner of the Croft. Obviously access to water was one of the necessities when establishing settlements, and Winteringham is at the very northern tip of a whole series of ‘spring-line’ villages stretching the length of the Lincolnshire Heights.

Some houses in the village had their own wells and pumps.  Some of the pumps were similar to the village pump shown above, while others (Elim House and the Mount in West End for instance) had wall-mounted, dual action pumps. These could be used for drawing water from the well, and then, by switching a small lever, could also pump the water to the upper storey of the house.

Shortly prior to the Second World War, mains water was brought to Winteringham, at which time most houses were connected to the supply, though there have been extensions since, some of which have been for agricultural purposes.

For many years there was a water tower just south of the village boundary at the top of the hill where the road to West Halton left the A1077, which fed approximately 40,000 gallons to the village each day.

Most of the water now is abstracted from the ground at Winterton Holmes Pumping Station.

The chart down the right hand side of the page shows the geology in the area of the pumping station, though it should be noted that the village geology varies very considerably from place to place within the parish.

6’ sand and gravel

4’ course gravel, little sand

1’ clean fine gravel

7’ fine gravel with clay

2’ hard clean gravel

5’ hard white sand

1’ very hard sand

3’ fairly soft dark grey sandy shale

9’ harder dark grey sandy shale

6’ hard limestone

29’ soft sandy limestone fissured

1’ Kirton limestone

1½’ Broken limestone

1½’ Shale

1’ soft sandstone