Tower Cottage, Culvers Avenue
A hidden delight
By Bob Steel
Tower Cottage stands off Culvers Avenue, and is to the best of my knowledge the last remaining surviving building associated with the Culvers estate. It was built around 1875 to accommodate a cistern to supply water for the estate including the three large houses on the estate: The Culvers, the Limes, and Wallington Cottage (or Culverside as it was also known). An artesian well to extract water from the chalk aquifer (water bearing rock) under London had been drilled here, and as then location was higher than the houses close to the river, the houses and other buildings could then be supplied by gravity.
The tower seems to have been purpose-built for some residential function (an original fireplace survives in the downstairs room), although the accommodation would have been very small. The building has very thick walls to take the weight of the cistern, and is handsome decorative brickwork as the pictures show. The well was capped and sealed a long time ago and its exact whereabouts is unknown. Until around the 1980s a small extension existed alongside the cottage, but this was demolished and replaced by a larger brick extension in 1990-91. Ten years later a conservatory was added.
This page was added by
Bob Steel on 14/11/2011.