Many thanks for this link, doganjo...
The land, which measures 0.9 of an acre, once belonged to the local farmer, who owns vast tracts of land across the whole county, but it was sold off to a local waterworks company in 1919, so that they could dig a deep well to supply fresh water to the area.
The pumping station associated with the well was steam driven with a chimney which would have belched out smoke... (I've dug up quite a bit of crushed up coal which has been scattered around from those old days, plus a lot of antique glass bottles... they seemed very fond of Bovril and Camp coffee... there are some blue medicinal type bottles, too, with "Poison" embossed on the glass).
I've been trying to grow some native shrubs around the perimeter, but the ground is difficult to cultivate, or at least, everywhere you try to dig you come across the rubble and chunks of iron which must have made up the original building. They must have knocked it down and spread it around rather than take it all away. Certainly, the ground slopes away in all directions from the centre, so I'm guessing its all there under the very thin layer of soil.
The foundations of the old building were incovered when I dug trenches for the drains to serve a sewage treatment plant. It was a substantial size... about 4x the size of the building which replaced it when they changed from using coal to electricity. That was in 1947.
I've searched all the local archives for photos, but haven't come across any yet. However, the history of the well and pumping station are documented online, plus I have the original charts for the well, showing the various depths for each section... it is some 300 feet deep and goes right down through hundreds of feet of London clay to the ancient shell sediment of the sea bed. There is a tidal river a few hundred metres away, so I doubt it will ever run dry. I can still pump water from it and it is very clean, but with a high soduim/flouride content which eventually led to the well being decommissioned in 1986. The pump house has been redundant ever since, and has never been used for anything except storage. There are signs that it has been vandalised over the last 30 years and I had to replace the glass and repair the door.
There have been several different owners, who've made applications which on every occasion were turned down. The person before me wanted to use it for equestrian purposes. That was turned down, but he was able to obtain permission for B1 use before selling it on, which is where we are now.
When the enforcement officer visited, she was able to observe that I have all my gardening tools and implements stored in the silo. They took photographs, which they will probably use when it comes to appeal.
I wonder if I would be able to use the land in an agricultural capacity whilst still retaining its status of Previousy Developed Land/brownfield, or whether that would be lost forever if I were to make an application to change the use of the land back to agricultural? This might scupper any long term plans for a live/work art studio...
![Sad :(](https://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/Smileys/default/sad.gif)
Dx