The nursery is located here to extract rainwater which
percolates the sands and gravels – which in effect is a
shallow aquifer – and, under this project, increase the
availability of this water to provide up-to 100,000 litres of
water the new nursery uses on a daily basis.
Historically the water was drawn up from a chamber
located in the old basement, and stored in above ground
tanks. The new arrangement was to relocate this well and
construct a new 7metre deep abstraction chamber in the
South-East of the site, connected to an adjacent 6m deep
chamber discharging excess well water east to the Tyburn
Brook using flap valves to prevent reverse flow conditions,
connect a myriad of deep historic pipework lying close to
the bottom of the sand and gravel aquifer, and place 3 new
interconnecting tanks underground, each 2metres in
diameter and 17metres long, with a combined capacity
of 126,000 litres. Water collects in the well and is pumped
back into the underground tanks, which in turn is then
pumped into the over-ground system.