A WATER pumping station which which saved hundreds of Leominster residents from terrible epidemics of typhoid in the mid-Victorian period is celebrating its 150th anniversary.
Back in 1865, typhoid killed 38 people in Leominster and almost all of the 444 wells counted in the gardens of town properties were contaminated.
When the borough raised funds to adopt the public health acts and built a water pumping station, the terrible waterborne epidemics of typhoid fever subsided.
In 1991 the pumping station building was moved to the Waterworks Museum in Hereford and rebuilt, incorporating all its Victorian features.
It was due to be demolished that year in Leominster to accommodate the expansion of a business park and to this day it still carries the indefinable atmosphere of a truly historic structure.
This Sunday (June 28), Councillor Felicity Norman, mayor of Leominster, will visit the Waterworks Museum as a guest of honour to unveil a plaque commemorating the founding of this life-saving building, 150 years later.
The museum will be open and in steam from 1pm onwards, with the mayor's visit taking place at 3pm.
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