Churton Memorial Drinking Fountain is a Grade II listed building in the Shropshire local planning authority area, England. First listed on 1 March 1988. Drinking fountain.
Churton Memorial Drinking Fountain
- WRENN ID
- secret-loggia-cobweb
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Shropshire
- Constituency
- North Shropshire MP: Helen Morgan (LD)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 1 March 1988
- Type
- Drinking fountain
- Address
- Churton Memorial Drinking Fountain, Brownlow Street, Whitchurch Urban
- OS grid reference
- SJ 545 415
- Coordinates
- 52.96952, -2.67881
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
This is a drinking fountain, dated 1882. It is constructed from banded pink and grey granite for the base, and banded red and grey sandstone ashlar for the upper parts. The design is in a Gothic Revival style, with an octagonal plan.
The base has a moulded stone cornice, and steps lead up to chamfered arched recesses at the front and back. These recessed areas originally featured copper lion-mask spouts and semi-circular bowls, and also contained animal troughs on each side, which were later converted into flower beds. An inscription runs around the top: "EVERY : ONE : THAT : DRINKETH / OF : THIS : WATER / SHALL THIRST : AGAIN / BUT : WHOSOEVER / DRINKETH : OF : THE : WATER : THAT / I : SHALL : GIVE : HIM / SHALL : NEVER : THIRST / ST JOHN : CHAP 4: VER 13 & 14".
The upper section is offset and has moulded arches to the front and back, each featuring two cinquefoil-headed lights (without a central shaft). There is blind tracery and flanking square buttresses with battlemented caps, topped by crocketed gables with finials. The sides have two cinquefoil-headed blind panels, an octagonal pier with a moulded base and cap, and a disused gas-lamp fitting. Above this is an octagonal pinnacle with blind ogee trefoil-headed panels on the sides, gables above, and a short crocketed spire with a wrought-iron cross finial.
A carved panel within the arch on the east side depicts two women drawing water from a well. An inscription in the arch on the west side, though partially illegible in 1986, reads: "THIS FOUNTAIN WAS/ ERECTED BY JOHN CHURTON / OF ... / IN LOVING MEMORY OF / HIS PARENTS AND... WIFE / ANN CHURTON AND AS / A MEMORIAL OF HIS / AFFECTIONATE & ENDURING / INTEREST IN THE WELFARE / OF HIS NATIVE TOWN 1882".
Originally situated at the junction of Green End, Brownlow Street, Talbot Street, and Station Road, the fountain was moved to its present location in the early 1930s when the new by-pass was constructed in 1924 and it became an obstruction to traffic.
Local climate
Churton Memorial Drinking Fountain receives an average of 790 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 58% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 91% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 37 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 68% of listed buildings. Of these, 18 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
Sign in or create a free account to unlock:
- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
Matched applications, energy data and sale records are assembled automatically and may contain errors. Flag incorrect data.
Similar buildings
The closest matches to this building from all 493,000 UK listed buildings, by architecture, period and materials.
this building 1 similar nearby listed buildings