Drinking Fountain is a Grade II listed building in the Southampton local planning authority area, England. First listed on 8 October 1981. Drinking fountain.
Drinking Fountain
- WRENN ID
- swift-sandstone-juniper
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Southampton
- Constituency
- Southampton Itchen MP: Darren Paffey (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 8 October 1981
- Type
- Drinking fountain
- Address
- Drinking Fountain, Houndwell Park, City of Southampton
- OS grid reference
- SU 421 117
- Coordinates
- 50.90387, -1.40194
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The drinking fountain, dated 1859, is located in Houndwell Park and features a granite inscription. It is constructed from stone and consists of a tapering square pillar made of small blocks of rusticated ashlar. The pillar has a cornice and pediments on all four sides, topped with a ball finial. At the base, there are stone seats on all four sides, and two iron lions' head masks are present. This fountain was presented by the Victorian philanthropist Charles Pierre Melly, who was born in 1829 and died in 1888. Melly was responsible for erecting the first free public drinking fountains in England in Liverpool in 1854, an initiative that inspired similar projects across towns and cities in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Notably, London's first fountain was established five years later in 1859. Melly was also an advocate for physical fitness and played a role in promoting the early Olympic movement in Britain.
Local climate
Drinking Fountain receives an average of 830 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 53% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 78% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 18 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 82% of listed buildings. Of these, 7 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.
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- 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
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