FENNY COMPTON WATER COMPANY LTD

Archive

Photographs and documents gathered over the company's history.

Historical

Black and white aerial photograph of a road junction in a village, with stone houses and long ranges of barns and outbuildings, a greenhouse, gardens laid out in cultivated plots and lawns behind walls and hedges, and open fields at the left. Black and white photograph of an empty road curving into a village, a post and rail fence and a field of grazing animals along the left, a hedge and trees along the right, telegraph poles beside the road, and a row of gabled houses and chimneys ahead with a car coming towards the camera. A tall arched recess set into a wall of coursed stone, framed by upright stone jambs and a heavy lintel under a projecting stone hood. A round stone trough stands at its foot holding a leafy plant. A metal downpipe runs down the wall at the right and low foliage grows at the left.

The Village

A round stone tower with a conical roof standing on the crest of a grassy hill, with sheep grazing across the slope below it and a pale sky streaked with cloud behind. A long thatched cottage of golden stone with two brick chimneys, seen across a garden of shrubs and rough grass, framed by trees on both sides with a strip of road in the foreground. An aerial photograph of a village strung along a road between green fields, with hedged and walled paddocks, a church with a square tower standing among trees, a line of tall poplars, houses in stone and brick with red and grey roofs, and farm buildings with long pale sheds at the top of the frame. A view over village rooftops from above, tiled roofs and brick chimneys among trees and hedges heavy with red berries, a dark copper beech in the middle of the frame, and beyond them a long grassy hill with a field of bare earth at its foot under a pale sky. A stone church with a square tower and a tall broach spire topped by a weathercock, seen from the churchyard in low sun against a blue sky with cloud. Gravestones lean across the grass in the foreground and houses stand along the left beyond the churchyard wall.

2017

Two men working at a pale timber post and rail fence enclosing a patch of rough grass on a hillside. A small brick structure stands inside the enclosure, with a watering can and tools on the grass beside them. A small timber hut with boarded sides and a flat plank roof standing in rough grass against a tall hedge, a padlock and a black cable at its near corner. A low brick chamber with a heavy cover stands immediately to its right, and blue pipe lies in the grass at the left. An open brick-lined chamber in a strip of mown grass between hedges, its metal cover lifted off and laid beside it. Three men stand talking near a second chamber further up, with open countryside visible beyond the hedge.

2019

A filter housing with a blue plastic cap holding a discoloured brown cartridge, connected into copper pipework with a lever valve. Plastic containers stand on either side. A stainless steel cylinder mounted horizontally beneath a metal control box on a white wall, connected to copper pipe and a braided flexible hose. The box carries a blue manufacturer's label and a rating plate. A deep, narrow trench cut through a grass field with a length of pipe lying in muddy water at the bottom. A tracked excavator stands at the head of the trench with its operator in a high-visibility jacket, and a man in wellington boots watches from the edge. A trench dug through grass with a pipe running along the bottom, partly submerged in muddy brown water. A blue valve fitting with a handwheel is joined into the pipe, and a cable runs from it up out of the trench.

2020 — Road Leak

A long trench opened along the edge of a road beside a stone building, with a blue plastic water pipe laid in the bottom in standing water. Red barriers and a mini excavator stand at the far end. A patch of fresh black tarmac laid in an irregular shape across a road and pavement beside a stone house. Red barriers and parked vehicles stand further up the road. A close view of a dark pipe joint underwater in a flooded excavation, held by a metal clamp band, with the muddy water above it broken into ripples and a second pipe crossing the foreground.

Church Street — Major Repairs

A long trench opened along a village street beside stone cottages, with blue plastic water pipe laid along the bottom and a second length of blue pipe crossing the foreground. Broken stone and earth are heaped the length of the trench, yellow barriers line the far side, a man in waders stands at the left, and two people watch from further up the street. A trench dug along the roadside beside a stone house, with a stack of black plastic pipe on the pavement and a pile of yellow barriers laid flat beside it. Two men work at the edge of the trench, one of them in a high-visibility jacket, with more yellow barriers further up the road. Lengths of black plastic pipe stacked on a pavement beside a kerb, with a trench alongside holding a blue pipe and a black corrugated duct. A man in an orange high-visibility suit works further up the street, yellow barriers run along the trench, and stone houses stand beyond.

FCWC Heros

A man in a blue neoprene vest and a head torch standing chest-deep in an open brick-lined chamber set in a lawn, looking up at the camera. A black elbow joint and a white pipe coupling are fixed to the brickwork beside him, a blue pipe enters through the wall, and the heavy concrete cover lies back on the grass against a timber fence. A montage of six colour photographs. The largest shows a man in a high-visibility fleece and ear defenders standing in an excavated hole in a village road holding a bar and a spade, beside a mini excavator, traffic cones and green barriers. The five smaller frames are head-and-shoulders portraits of men: one in an open-necked striped shirt and glasses, one seated in a machine cab wearing a cap, one in an orange work jacket and glasses, one in a patterned vest and sunglasses holding a mug, and one in a cap drinking from a mug.

Water tanks and filters

A strip of mown grass running between tall hedges under a clear blue sky, with a metal chequer-plate cover set in a brick surround in the foreground and a long steel bar lying across it. Coils of blue plastic pipe lie on the grass to the right, and a small timber hut with a low roof stands at the far end beside a brick structure. The inside of a timber-lined hut. A tall blue cylindrical vessel and a cream and blue tank stand against the left-hand wall, joined by braided flexible hoses. Grey plastic pipework with blue lever valves runs across the far wall and through two vertical stainless steel tubes, with a switch and small control boxes wired above it. Blue valves, couplings, pipe offcuts and a measuring jug are stacked on the concrete floor. Grey plastic pipework with blue lever handles mounted on a timber-lined wall, running through two vertical stainless steel tubes. Two blue filter housings are fixed at the right, one above the other, with red and black leads clipped to a terminal beside the lower one. Blue and black couplings, a measuring jug and boxed fittings are stacked on the floor below. The corner of a timber-lined hut, with a cream and blue tank marked MAX and MIN standing in front of a tall blue cylindrical vessel, the two joined by braided flexible hoses running up to the ceiling. A cable runs down the back wall to a switch, a sheet of white paper is pinned above it, and grey pipework with blue valves crosses the right-hand wall. Files, a battery unit and boxes of fittings stand on the floor. A small grey-painted timber hut with horizontal boarding and a corrugated roof, standing in dappled shade under trees with a grassy field beyond to the left. A concrete slab is set flush in the grass in the foreground.

Documents

A page of handwritten copperplate headed "Memorandum of Association of the Fenny Compton Water Company Limited", setting out five numbered clauses, on creased and folded paper. A handwritten ruled table headed "Names addresses and descriptions of Subscribers" with a narrow right-hand column for the number of shares taken by each, listing nine names against figures from fifty down to ten, totalled at 150, above the line "Dated this 28th day of September 1866". A printed certificate with the words "The Fenny Compton Water Company" written across it in large copperplate, continuing "Limited, is Incorporated under the Companies Act, 1862, as a Limited Company, this Thirteenth day of October One thousand eight hundred and sixty six", with an ink signature above the line "Registrar of Joint Stock Companies" and "(No. 1.)" at the foot. A page of handwritten copperplate headed "The Fenny Compton Water Company, Limited.", transferring the shares numbered 41 to 50 to the Rector and Churchwardens of the Parish of Fenny Compton, dated "the 28th day of January One thousand eight hundred and seventy three", with a purple embossed revenue stamp and three signatures at the foot. Reference numbers are written across the head of the sheet. Four panels of a folded legal document laid open on a grey surface. The first is a typed deed headed "This Conveyance" in engrossed black letter with a red ten shilling embossed stamp. The second is a hand-drawn plan of two plots coloured pink either side of a track off a road marked "Main Road", the larger marked "Fenny Compton Water Company", with dimensions along each edge and the line "16⅔ Acre Scale — Total Area 98 Square Yards". The third carries typed attestation clauses and two dark red wax seals. The fourth is the wrapper, reading "Mr. H. W. T. Smith", "to", "The Fenny Compton Water Co. Ltd" and then "Conveyance" in black letter.