Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders
Date 2007
Event ID 606542
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/606542
[Name cited as The Round House water tower]. Built from 1829–32, the tower was part of a water supply scheme for the city designed and superintended by schoolmaster–engineer Dr Adam Anderson, Rector of Perth Academy.
The Round House is built in ashlar masonry in the style of a roman temple. It comprises a circular base with walls 5 ft thick supporting a 146 000 gallon domed storage tank from which the water was distributed by gravity throughout the city. The tank and roof are made from cast-iron sections bolted together. Alongside, to the north, there was a boiler/pump house with a chimney 110 ft high adorned with classical vase-style chimney pot. The scheme also included filter beds on Moncreiffe Island and an intake suction pipe beneath the river from which the water was pumped into the distribution tank.
It is recorded that Dr Anderson once wrote in chalk on the lintel above the south door of the Round House,
‘AQUAM IGNE ET AQUA HAURIO’ (‘I draw water by fire and water’). This piece of classical wit was later inscribed in gilt lettering on a panel above the main door where it can be still be seen, but there is now no longer water in the tank.
R Paxton and J Shipway
Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders' with kind permission of Thomas Telford Publishers.
