Drinking Fountain in Highgate Wood is a Grade II listed building in the Haringey local planning authority area, England. First listed on 3 March 2003. A 19th century Drinking fountain.
Drinking Fountain in Highgate Wood
- WRENN ID
- under-ember-root
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Haringey
- Constituency
- Hampstead and Highgate MP: Tulip Siddiq (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 3 March 2003
- Type
- Drinking fountain
- Address
- Drinking Fountain in Highgate Wood, Muswell Hill Road
- OS grid reference
- TQ 283 888
- Coordinates
- 51.58408, -0.14887
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Drinking Fountain in Highgate Wood is a public drinking fountain built in 1888. It features a pink Peterhead granite obelisk with chamfered angles, which stands over a broad basin supported by a square plinth on an octagonal base; the lower parts are made of grey granite. Inside the plinth, there is a narrow dog trough. On the west side of the obelisk, there is a bronze plaque that reads, "The Gift of a few Friends. Erected 1888." Below this, another plaque features an inscription from Coleridge: "Drink, Pilgrim, here! Here rest! And if thy heart / Be innocent, here too shalt thou refresh / Thy spirit, listening to some gentle sound / Or passing gale or hum of murmuring bees!"
This fountain is a charming example of public drinking fountains, erected shortly after Highgate Woods was opened as a public open space in 1886. Samuel Taylor Coleridge had strong ties to Highgate, having lived there from 1816 until his death in 1834, and he is buried in the area.
Local climate
Drinking Fountain in Highgate Wood sits in one of the driest parts of the UK, with an average of 680 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 99% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 99% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 29 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 66% of listed buildings. Of these, 13 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