The troughs were supplied by local priories, as most of the wells and springs were also owned by religious foundations, but with the Dissolution of the Monasteries between 1536 and 1541, maintenance and upkeep of the system passed to parishes.

Large numbers of extra ships used the facilities, and needed their water tanks to be filled before putting back out to sea.

The Merchant Venturers Company had proposed a scheme to supply the area of Clifton with water from two springs on the banks of the River Avon.

[11] The 1846 act authorised the construction of Simpson's "Line of Works", an 11-mile (18 km) aqueduct designed to carry water from Chewton and Litton to Barrow Gurney.

A network of open-jointed drains and culverts were constructed at Chewton and Litton, to collect water from springs, which were located at a level some 400 feet (120 m) above that of Bristol Harbour.

This fed into a tunnel cut through a ridge of magnesium limestone conglomerate, after which a rivetted wrought iron tube carried the water over the Harptree ravine.

The third reservoir at Bedminster Down supplied the district to the south of the harbour, and was fed by gravity from Cold Bath spring, a little to the west of Barrow Gurney.

[14] The construction work was finished in 1851, and was designed to deliver 4 million imperial gallons (18 Ml) per day, but by 1860 the company had realised that this was not achievable in dry years.

With the second reservoir not yet completed, they resorted to obtaining water from any springs that they could, but even with temporary pumping, they could not supply more than 350,000 imperial gallons (1.6 Ml) per day.

c. xxvi), which allowed them to obtain water from springs at Chelvey and Migdel, several miles to the west of Barrow Gurney.

Simpson anticipated that they might need to extract ground water in due course, and sited the Chelvey pumping station at a location where wells could be driven down into the underlying red sandstone.

[17] Years of planning and design work for the Chew Valley Lake Scheme as a reservoir for the city culminated in the obtaining of the Bristol Waterworks Act 1939 (2 & 3 Geo.

The temporary intake, pumping station and link to the line of works had been authorised in 1944 during a severe drought, although the full scheme as described in the 1939 act would not receive permission to proceed until 1948.

[22] Discussions on amalgamation with West Gloucester Waterworks Company had begun in 1955, but on 26 September 1956, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government published a circular suggesting that the existing water supply undertakings in the country, then numbering over 1,000, should be radically reduced.

Amalgamation with West Gloucester was agreed, and most of the 16 water supply undertakings in the Mendip Hills started negotiating with Bristol Waterworks.

[23] In 1957, agreements for takeover were concluded with Axbridge RDC, Shepton Mallet Waterworks Company and Glastonbury Corporation, and discussions with five other undertakings were well advanced.

[25] The population supplied increased to 802,000 over an area of 815 square miles (2,110 km2) with the takeover of Tetbury RDC and Wells City waterworks on 1 April 1961.