York Guides

IN some parts of the country, there is an acute water shortage, and hosepipe bans are being introduced, so I think it is about time a little common sense and practicality were brought to bear.
Why not do as our forebears did, and utilise the rainwater which runs down the gutters to waste, frequently overloading the drainage system? I suggest that all new houses, public buildings and areas undergoing alterations should install an underground cistern of a minimum 1,000 gallons
capacity.
A small indoor pump with filter, feeding a separate tank upstairs connected to all loos and an outside tap for watering the garden and car washing would save endless water. An occasional bottle of bleach keeps it sweet. A run-off pipe into the existing drains would prevent overflow.
This is a well-tried scheme, not an airy-fairy suggestion. We have a 3,000 gallon underground brick cistern built in 1826 under the front paving which takes all the farmhouse rainwater and, more recently, that from all adjacent buildings.
This means we very rarely need to top up from the mains, even in a household of five adults doing dirty jobs who like a daily bath or shower and clean clothes.
Most houses in rural areas had these cisterns long-ago filled in with soil and rubble in the guise of modernisation.
Being a farm, we are metered and we use our mains water only for drinking, our farm shop and the stock. It was a Ministry of Agriculture requirement which came in in 1943 that the stock had to have mains water – but not us.
Incidentally, if everyone had to carry the water for baths, laundry etc as we did, particularly upstairs, it would be amazing how quickly those needs would diminish and Florence Nightingale's excellent maxim "with privacy and a pint of water, any lady may remain clean" would once again be relevant.