Amwell Hill Pumping Station

Amwell Hill Pumping Station is a pumping station built in 1849 by William Chadwell Mylne, who served as the engineer for the New River Company. This tall classical building has one high storey and faces west. At the rear, there is a boiler house that was added a little later. The structure is made of fine yellow stock brick, featuring buff brick gauged arches for the arcading on the front and sides, as well as for the square-headed windows. It has a low-pitched slate roof that is hipped at the front and concealed by a bold stucco cornice with a blocking course that rises higher in the middle. The eaves overhang at the sides, and there is a raking gable parapet at the rear with a stout, square chimney that tapers above a projecting band running around the building below the eaves.

The front of the building has a triple arcade with a plinth and imposts, along with a recessed sash window featuring 6/6 panes in each bay, although the center one is blocked. There is a small door and a window with slender cast iron bars in the outer bays of the south side, each with square heads beneath a segmental triple arcade. On the north side, there is a taller central round-arched opening with the upper part glazed with radial bars, flanked by sash windows in the side bays. A large opening likely served to light the steam engine and facilitate its construction, although the station was converted to electricity in 1944. This is the earliest extant pumping station in Hertfordshire, built to pump water into the New River.