Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough -
Walton-on-Thames
This is the eighth in our series of caches placed close to or
associated with drinking fountains or animal troughs. The cache is
located near to Walton on Thames near to an example of a
Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association
granite cattle troughs.
At the junction of Ashley and Station Roads. In the summer the bowl
is resplendent with colourful flowers, a delightful way to utilise
these once useful but now mostly redundant pieces of street
furniture.
The Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association
was an association set up in London by Samuel Gurney an MP and
philanthropist and Edward Thomas Wakefield, a barrister in 1859 to
provide free drinking water. Originally called the Metropolitan
Free Drinking Fountain Association it changed its name to include
cattle troughs in 1867, to also support animal welfare.
Water provision in the nineteenth century was from nine private
water companies each with a geographic monopoly, which provided
inadequate quantities of water which was often contaminated, as was
famously discovered by John Snow during the 1854 cholera
epidemic.
Population growth in London had been very rapid (more than doubling
between 1800 and 1850) without an increase in infrastructure
investment. Legislation in the mid nineteenth century gradually
improved the situation; the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers was
formed, water filtration was made compulsory, and water intakes on
the Thames were forced to be moved above the sewage outlets.
In this environment the public drinking fountain movement began,
initially in Liverpool where the local government was granted the
ability to buy out the private water companies in 1847. It built
the first public baths and then encouraged philanthropic public
drinking water fountains. This was taken up by Samuel Gurney.
The surviving cattle troughs are mainly large granite ones, in many
cases planted with flowers. Earlier designs were of cast iron or
zinc lined timber, but both were too easily damaged.
The cache has a log book and a pencil
If any body would
like to expand to this series please do, I would just ask that you
could let Merstham Mafia know first so he can keep track of the
cache numbers and names to avoid duplication