The conditions forming part of the first sale was that a free supply of water should be given to the estate properties. These conditions were repeated in the Mill Meece agreement which provided for a supply of 1200 gallons per day to farms and cottages on the estate at Mill Meece. A further condition was that "furnaces boilers shall be of the most approved design for lessening so far as may be possible the emission of smoke or noxious or offensive exhalations". One wonders what previous experiences prompted Mr. Fitzherbert to have this requirement included.
This site proved to be on the correct side of the Swynnerton fault and Messer’s Mather and Platt completed the first production borehole in May 1909.This borehole was 1242 feet deep and 37 inches in diameter and was unlined except the upper 80 feet which was over 9 feet in diameter and lined with brickwork.
First Phase Construction
The three principal contracts additional to the boreholes were for the construction of the buildings, laying the rising main to Hanchurch and for the supply and installation of the pumps, engines, boilers and ancillary equipment.
Sometime after the signing of the building
contract between the Company and Thomas Godwin and Son of Hanley, possibly in
July 1913, it was discovered that a minor fault running parallel to and
associated with the Swynnerton fault was situated under the position planned for
the engine house. The engine house was therefore relocated. It is thought that
the boiler house was originally planned to lie at right angles to the position
in which it was constructed, which would have made it much closer to the
chimney. It was suggested that the chimney,
involving a long period of specialist brickwork construction, was started before
the layout altered and continued in what may later have been considered a rather
illogical position in relation to the boiler house.
The buildings were constructed between June 1913 and May 1914 when construction of the 20 inch diameter rising main commenced by direct labour. The Engineer's monthly report book for the period showed that the boiler house roof was on by February 1914 by which time the engine house walls were nearly full height, with the chimney construction halted at 81 feet until better weather in the spring.