Sidney Cooper Weston drinking fountain

The Sidney Cooper Weston drinking fountain is a drinking fountain and lamp standard erected in 1897 to honor the local philanthropist Sidney Cooper Weston. It was designed by Andrew Handyside and Co of the Britannia Ironworks in Derby and was relocated in 1922.

The fountain is made of painted cast-iron with a base of stone slabs and features a baroque style. It has a quatrefoil-shaped shallow trough surrounding an elaborate drinking fountain topped with a lamp standard. The fountain includes four curved buttresses with decorative mouldings, which terminate in piers topped with statues of putti holding water urns. Between the buttresses are semi-circular basins with gadroon mouldings set over cartouches decorated with roundels. Above the basins, Poseidon masks serve as water spouts, separated by inverted consoles and topped by a gadroon moulding. The pilasters have small lugs that would have originally held chains for drinking mugs, which are now lost.

The lamp standard is designed as a Corinthian column, featuring a bulbous base adorned with acanthus leaves and a fluted shaft with two decorative bands. The lamp gallery has a central column and two branches, each with additional scrollwork, supporting modern light fittings with glass globes.

On one of the piers, there is a plaque with the inscription: "ERECTED/ 1897/ BY PUBLIC SUBSCRIPTION/ IN MEMORY OF/ SIDNEY COOPER WESTON/ OF THIS TOWN/ CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPIST/ AND/ GOSPEL TEMPERANCE ADVOCATE/ BORN DEC 29TH 1842/ DIED JAN 25TH 1893/ PSALM 41.1 BLESSED IS HE THAT/ CONSIDERETH THE POOR."

The fountain stands on a low circular stone base, which likely replaced the original stone plinth when it was relocated in 1922.