Drive to a former sewage treatment site, Heathcote, south Leamington

Image: © Robin Stott Taken: 3 Jun 2018

Nigel Mykura went a bit further Image and Colin Craig went further still in 2009: Image and Image A full-blown sewage works for Leamington Corporation is first shown here on an OS map of 1939; the house not till 1968. The site is on a low summit, allowing effluent to drain into the Tach Brook, thence to the River Avon above the village of Barford. It became redundant in the 1970s after the opening of the sewage works at Longbridge southwest of Warwick, built to serve both towns (and now operated by Severn Trent Water). It's not clear how the sewage reached the works. From 1871 Leamington Board of Health had by necessity pumped sewage from the works at Edmondscote Image by a rising main to the Earl of Warwick's land at Heathcote, a rise of 20m over a distance of about 3km, where it was reportedly treated and sold to farmers. Treatment may have consisted of being spread on the land to be naturally irrigated by rain. Old maps show no feature that can be interpreted as a pipeline, yet there were reports of bursts. If it was underground, where did it come to the surface? Did it supply the 1939 works? Alternatively from 1871, could it have been only a short length to an area where solids could be loaded on to carts and conveyed to Heathcote? Refs: Lyndon F. Cave. Royal Leamington Spa, a history; Phillimore, 2009 ISBN 978-1-86077-505-5 Contemporary newspapers, town council minutes, www.old-maps.co.uk

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