The 130-year-old drinking trough outside Stamford Hill library often goes ignored. A local society is seeking to change this.
The Hackney Society is nominating four drinking troughs for listed status, hoping to preserve their history and ensure that they remain part of the local infrastructure in the years to come.
Volunteer Rob Briggs, a trustee of the society said: “There’s no rhyme or reason as to why they aren’t listed yet. The council knows about them.”
The group has been holding educational events at the drinking fountains where people can share their research into local history and learn “the history of roadside drinking troughs”.
There are seven drinking troughs in the borough, but four are not protected by listed heritage status.
“You could foresee a time when they were removed,” Briggs said, suggesting if a bicycle lane were to be planned, the trough could easily be torn down, without the wider knowledge of what it represents.
The trough outside the library was built in 1889. Hundreds of water stations were established in London in the 19th century amid growing concern for the welfare of the cattle and horses in the city.
The Stamford Hill trough is of particular interest for the group: “It’s a little unloved compared to the other three,” Briggs said. Other sites have been turned into flowerbeds.
Briggs said he wants the site to “represent” Stamford Hill: “any interpretative panel that’s put up will have text in Hebrew alongside English”.
Charlotte Galea is currently a MA Newspaper Journalism Student at City University. She hails from Kent and is proud of her working-class roots, using journalism as a way to speak for communities who need to be heard.
She received a first-class honours undergraduate degree in History from King's College London. She has written about nearly everything, from a love-letter to her home town in the wake of a disappointing Reform majority, a review of Bridgerton's Season 3 and an investigation into how social media is making young women more conservative, amongst many other topics.