Metropolitan Water Board Pump House Tower, Kew Bridge

This stand-pipe tower was built in 1867 by Messrs Aird and Sons for the Grand Junction Water Works Company, as part of a larger pump house complex housing Boulton and Watt Cornish pumping machines. The tower is square in plan and tapers upwards to an octagonal cupola, with the change in shape achieved using squinches on each of the four corners. Two prominent cornices are present; the lower one defines the top of the tower’s plinth, which is approximately one-third of the total height. The upper cornice, featuring modillions, sits just below the squinches leading to the cupola. The plinth itself incorporates a secondary cement-rendered plinth with banding, also roughly one-third of the tower's height. This is punctuated by three pilasters with rendered imposts, and two recessed semi-circular arches containing ventilation slits, repeated on all four sides. The main shaft continues this detailing with similar banding, pilasters, and arches. A circular window with a large arch springs from the two outer pilasters above this detailing. The cupola has slender openings on each face, topped by rendered arches on rendered imposts on all eight sides. The cupola's shaft is finished with a simple, banded capping. It previously had a copper dome. The tower’s finial is a ball and metal rod that also serves as a lightning conductor. Originally, the tower housed a 4-foot rising pipe and a 3-foot falling pipe; it replaced an earlier standpipe that had been damaged by frost.