Water company archive to become publicly available

The archive material will be made publicly available by Dorset History centre

Hundreds of boxes of Wessex Water archive material dating back 200 years will be catalogued and preserved ahead of being made available to the public.

The company had previously held its archive at its Sutton Poyntz facility, near Weymouth, but has now decided to transfer the records to public archive services across the south west.

The Dorset Historical Centre (DHC) has been given a £103,000 grant by the water company to catalogue, conserve and digitise the parts of the collection.

The project, which is due to start in early 2025, will enable members of the public to freely access the archive online.

It dates back to the early 19th Century when small, localised water companies grew up and when sewage treatment was handled by urban and rural district and town councils, and land drainage by river authorities.

It covers the last 200 years of water history in the south west

Wessex Water itself was formed from 99 different organisations in 1974, before being privatised in 1989.

Among the material are plans, maps, photographs and documents relating mostly to the development of water supply and sewage treatment operations.

In addition, a significant amount of historical video material has also been passed over and will be digitised.

Among the collection are maps and plans

Councillor Ryan Hope, who is in charge of culture at Dorset Council, said: “We are honoured that Wessex Water has gifted us this archive material and entrusted us to look after it on a permanent basis."

He added that DHC would make the material "available to everyone", and would preserve it "as the previous custodians have done".

Marilyn Smith, director of communications at Wessex Water, said: “We are pleased to have been able to fund the conservation, preservation and cataloguing of this terrific collection and to make it available for research and study."