Open the Doors to Stockton Brook Waterworks

Let's open the doors

Our project is to open wide the grand oak doors of the Engine Hall at the Stockton Brook Waterworks, to welcome everyone to an open weekend here on Friday the 27th and Saturday the 28th of September 2024. We'd love to invite you too!

We need your help to unlock this local asset. We are applying for a UK Shared Prosperity Grant from Staffordshire Moorlands District Council to -

• Renovate the main doors to the Waterworks. The original large double doors with fanlight above are of historical value. The structure of the whole entrance needs fixing back into the building; the doors have dropped and are very hard to open.
• Replace the broken windows.
• Install a toilet and washbasin and connect to an existing septic tank. Replace failing asphalt covering flat roof over the building to the rear of the Engine Hall where these will be with rubber sheeting.
• Install cctv to help protect the site. 

The Engine Hall will be revealed as a lovely, uplifting, open space, elegant and filled with light. We will be able to use the building for activities then, while we complete the stages of restoration together.

We are fundraising here to provide match funding for the UKSPF grant, and hope that you can help us. It will mean that we can invite organisations, the local community and supporters to see this unique building, and enjoy arts, nature and heritage events here. 

We'll gather information to show future funders that the project is needed and viable, that our proposed new use for this much loved building is realistic and a benefit to the area.

We set up our Community Interest Company in 2020 to work towards creating a welcoming, accessible community centre for Art, Nature & Heritage in North Staffordshire at the Stockton Brook Water Works, a magnificent Victorian Water Pumping Station, built in 1884 to provide clean water to the people of North Staffordshire.

The peaceful site is in a conservation area. The Directors are committed to creating a wonderful new use for this fantastic industrial building, originally made to serve the local community, providing clean drinking water and water for industry for Stoke-on-Trent and the Staffordshire Moorlands. It is already a much loved and admired feature of the local area.

We believe strongly in new uses for old buildings. Stockton Brook Waterworks, with it's 300 foot well has huge potential to be a showcase for green technologies and solutions for power and heating. The surrounding nature reserve is already shared with our community at art & nature events, for example, the celebration of National Meadows Day here on July the 6th this year. This opens up the site to share the extraordinary diversity of flora and fauna here; people are inspired to draw and paint, enjoy expert led nature walks, and engage fully in the wildflower meadows.

The original Directors, Mark Delf and Louise Adams are both artists and designers and they took on the building in 2004, with passion and excitement, and did much work immediately to save the Engine Hall roof from collapse as it was in a very poor state.

We are now five directors, and as you can see, we've come a long way!

Louise & Mark in front of the Waterworks before work commenced, and the photographs below show some parts of the restoration of the Engine Hall, including the renovation of five 32 foot pitch pine Queen post trusses, re roofing the Engine Hall with original Westmoorland slate, laying new hand made feature bricks, renovation of downspouts, lead work and painting of windows; in fact, a total re build of the large Engine Hall roof.

We see a real local need for more space to be connected to nature and to enable creative practice, and this much loved light and airy building, set in a green oasis by the Caldon Canal, is the perfect place for such a centre, with plans for meeting rooms, flexible spaces and a cafe, accessible to all; a beautiful, creative place, to enjoy meeting others, try things out and have fun together. The Community Centre will enhance wellbeing and combat social isolation, strengthen networks, knowledge and skill as well as bring new life to this spacious industrial building.

The Future

The project here, to support the opening of the doors to the building and making the Engine Hall a useable space is absolutely crucial to the future of the Stockton Brook Waterworks, helping us to unlock funding to continue the journey of restoration and creation of a thriving community hub, full of life.

Arts, nature and heritage activities will be supported commercially through the café, conference and meeting facilities and venue hire.

 The community of North Staffordshire will gain opportunities and be strengthened, as well as have access to a beautiful, special place, easily reached via public transport as well as the canal, footpaths and the main road between Stoke-on-Trent and Leek. 

The CIC are very keen to support and reflect the broad and lively creativity and heritage of the local area, including it's textiles and ceramics, as well as give opportunities to work on an important heritage building, combining traditional skills with new technologies to create a modern, sustainable centre that will support the community for years to come.

We hope you can help, and share this exciting journey with us!