UTILITIES

Easton Royal has always enjoyed a constant supply of water stored underground even in long periods of drought.  A map of 1886 shows the whereabouts of seventeen wells in the village providing each dwelling with easy access to a pump.

Alec Choules remembered as a child drawing water each Sunday morning sufficient to fill the copper boiler (4 buckets), two baths (5 or 6 buckets), earthenware pans indoors (2 buckets) and another 2 buckets left standing. Sometimes the bucket would come off its chain and fall to the bottom of the well, which meant fishing for it with some grabs called nippers attached to a clothes line – a frustrating way for a young lad to spend his morning off school.

Water for the farms, however, was more problematical - the supply had to be pumped from wells and taken by horse and cart to fill troughs for the animals in the fields, cool milk in dairies and clean down farmyards.

This time-consuming situation led to an unusual alliance in 1908 when eight village farmers worked together to establish the Easton Royal Waterworks, with the purpose of pumping water round the village through a network of pipes and thus saving all those involved a great deal of trouble.

A large well was sunk in the middle of a field on Conygyre Farm on the high north side of the main road, fenced around with barbed wire and a windmill was erected. When there was enough wind, water was pumped by the windmill but at other times one of the first diesel engines in the country was used. The blacksmith, Jim Kimber who lived in one of the nearby Breach cottages, would be called upon to heat the engine with a blowlamp to make it hot enough to start the pump.

Farmers paid for their water according to the size of farm and the number of animals kept. From then on water for dairies, field troughs, some of the luckier houses and here and there even in a garden, could be obtained from the luxury of a tap.

On one occasion, the pump failed when a cow managed to fall into the well. Users had to go to back to their old methods until the body was recovered, the well cleaned out and a new pump fitted. What else the well contained at that time no-one dared to ask, but people were advised to add chlorine to their water for several days afterwards.

The water supply was a little erratic due to a lack of knowledge regarding the siting of stopcocks to control the flow. The original plans of the pipe network had been entrusted to the vicar who subsequently departed to an address unknown, taking the plans with him.

Although some people had by now installed chemical type toilets, it was still generally the era of earth closets often placed at the end of very long gardens and shared with other cottages.

In 1929 electricity arrived in the village with the National Grid pylons marching down the valley. The Wessex Electricity Company operated a scheme whereby for a quarterly rent of 11s 10d (59p) householders could have three light fittings and a plug installed free of charge, with a tariff of one penny per unit of power used.

The majority of villagers were persuaded that the ‘electric’ was a good thing, but some elderly couples were worried about fire and drew the line at having their bedrooms wired up, preferring to continue to go to bed with candles and oil lamps. One old man refused to let his son buy him an electric fire as he reasoned ‘you can’t spit into one of them things’. Most people now became aware of ‘the wireless’ – gradually the sound quality improved, the price came down and aerial poles were erected in back gardens.

It was not until the 1950s that street lighting, mains water and a sewerage system were installed for the comfort of villagers.

Easton Royal Waterworks windpump

Pearce well map