Folly Pier Waterworks was a 19th-century waterworks on the
Isle of Portland
An isle is an island, land surrounded by water. The term is very common in British English
British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct fr ...
,
Dorset
Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of , ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. It was located at East Weares, the east side of Portland, below
HM Prison Portland, which it supplied water for. Today, only the foundations and walls of the reservoirs survive. The waterworks was named after
Folly Pier, a pier once used for the transporting of
Portland stone by sea.
History
Construction of the breakwaters of
Portland Harbour commenced in 1849, along with the various fortifications including the
Verne Citadel
Verne Citadel is a 19th-century citadel on the Isle of Portland, Dorset, England. Located on the highest point of Portland, Verne Hill, it sits in a commanding position overlooking Portland Harbour, which it was built to defend. It later became H ...
.
HM Prison Portland was established in 1848 to provide convict labour for these works. As the island's traditional water supply, using springs an wells, was not sufficient for the government works, the Admiralty tasked Chief Engineer John Coode to build Folly Pier Waterworks and its large reservoir, along with a pumping station on the clifftop at Cheyne.
The waterworks supplied the prison above and acted as an intermediary by receiving and managing water from the pumping station. Separate reservoir tanks allowed both rainwater and seawater to be held.
The waterworks was later closed due to an outbreak of typhoid which killed several prisoners.
After the prison was converted into a Borstal in 1921, the remaining reservoir tanks of the then-demolished waterworks was used as swimming pools from the late 1920s. However, in 1933, one of the Borstal Boys drowned during a swimming event and this caused all swimming to be banned at the reservoirs. A swimming pool was later built within the prison complex.
The surviving reservoirs have largely been reclaimed by nature. One of the remaining reservoirs acts now as a pond.
References
Gallery
Image:Folly Pier Waterworks, East Weares, Portland, Dorset 10.JPG, Another large section of the remains.
Image:Folly Pier Waterworks, East Weares, Portland, Dorset 7.JPG, The centre area of the remains.
Image:Folly Pier Waterworks, East Weares, Portland, Dorset 2.JPG, Reeds growing in a pond-like area of the ruins.
{{Jurassic Coast
Isle of Portland
Jurassic Coast