Restoring the Piazza Fountain
Merseyside Civic Society (MCS) is spearheading a campaign to fully restore Liverpool’s famous and much loved Piazza ‘bucket’ fountain thus safeguarding it for future generations.
Donating to the Restoration
Please donate at https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/bucketfountain
We need your support and will require ‘match funding’ for our National Lottery Heritage Bid so please consider supporting this worthwhile cause by making a donation.
Any funds received are kept in a restricted Fund held by Merseyside Civic Society for the sole purpose of restoring the Piazza Fountain. We are currently fundraising for a temporary repaint of the fountain so that we can get it up and running again for Spring 2025 when the cladding work on Beetham Plaza is complete. If you would like your donation to go to this more immediate work please indicate this when you donate.
Friends of the Piazza Fountain
Follow the Friends of the Piazza Fountain on Facebook and X/Twitter
A Video about the Fountain
See The Modernist Society’s short video about the fountain at Watch this video.
It was Merseyside Civic Society that commissioned Welsh sculptor and designer Richard Huws to design a kinetic water fountain for central Liverpool in 1962.
The fountain was completed in May 1967 but in recent years it has fallen into disrepair and now urgently requires restoration. The video shows its deteriorating state in 2020.
The Restoration Proposals
A scrollable set of 20 slides available HERE describes and illustrates the restoration proposals.
A detailed report on the different restoration options was produced and a public survey confirmed that there was overwhelming support for fully restoring and upgrading the fountain, restoring the original water depth, and returning the fountain to its original black or slate grey finish. After the title, the slides commence with the results of the public survey and then illustrate each of the considered restoration options.
Listed Building Status
Threatened with removal, the fountain was listed Grade II by Government in August 2019, following a recommendation by Historic England – see the official List Entry at https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1463126?section=official-list-entry
In December 2019, it was chosen by Historic England as one of their “most fascinating” listings of the over 500 structures listed that year. It is Richard Huws’ sole surviving fountain and the earliest and finest of only two ‘bucket’ fountains in the World, the other being in Wellington, New Zealand.
History and Richard Huws
Listing was thanks to the efforts of some of Richard Huw’s former students and Richard Moore, in particular, whose A waterfall of a strange new kind gives a comprehensive description of the fountain’s history and design, including a short biography of its designer.
Welsh Connection
In 1962, the original proposal was for the fountain to commemorate the completion of Liverpool City Council’s controversial Treweryn reservoir scheme in Gwynedd, but Richard Huws, as a founder member of Plaid Cymru, was vehemently opposed to this idea. He wanted his fountain to echo the waterfalls in the mountains of Eryri (Snowdonia) and stormy seas on the rocky coast of Ynys Mon (Anglesey), both where he had lived as a man and boy, and which he had first sought to achieve with his prototype fountain outside Basil Spence’s ‘Sea and Ships Pavilion’ at the 1951 Festival of Britain.
Enslaved Peoples Connection
In 1965, the designated site for the fountain was named Goree Piazza, in recognition of the once nearby two Warehouses and original Goree Piazzas, named after the slave embarkation island of Goree. In the same year, the adjacent new office block was named Wilberforce House (now Beetham Plaza) after the leading abolitionist. The history of the area is summarised on the 1967 plaque on the fountain in the shape of an African shield, while for more on the slave trade and the sea journey from Goree Island see https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/history-of-slavery/middle-passage
Culture
Once installed in 1967, the Piazza Fountain inspired several musical works. The video of the Liverpool Spinners ‘The Family of Man’ at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_yjNLtmcG0
concludes with the folk group singing at the fountain. In 1970 the wonderfully contemporary and irreverent ‘Buckets of the Mersey’ was written and in 2007 a reactivated fountain also moved the composer Howard Skempton to score his classical piece ‘Piazza’.
Public Appreciation
A petition, launched in February 2019, to save the fountain from removal gained over 4,700 signatures. Many respondents provided reasons for signing, over a third stating specifically that they wanted it to stay in its current location with comments such as “This fountain is iconic. It belongs where it is”. Some stressed the fountain’s heritage; “Liverpool needs to stop trying to destroy pieces of its heritage and culture, however small”. Many cited the fond memories they had of the fountain when younger; “This fountain has so many memories for me from my youth and childhood”, while others stressed its importance as public art; “It is a stunning piece of sculpture in a perfect setting.”
The Ideal Site
For many historical and practical reason, the Goree Piazza, situated between the City Centre and the visitor hub of the Pier Head, is the ideal site for Richard Huws’ unique water and sound sculpture. The piazza is the first and sole example of a city square enhanced with “artwork in the public realm” completed under Liverpool’s 1965 Shankland Plan, with the fountain complex being designed specifically for the site to exploit its change in levels and the limited sunlight reaching the square. The small enclosed, sheltered and otherwise quiet, ‘hidden’ location magnifies the fountain both aurally and visually and allows its resulting sights and sounds to be fully appreciated largely devoid of traffic and other distractions.
Progress to Date
Once saved from removal, Richard prepared a brief for a feasibility study and identified an experienced Heritage Consultant able to undertake the work as well as making a generous donation to kickstart the fund raising.
The Heritage Consultant produced a report on its condition and outlined the restoration needs of the fountain, its two viewing platforms, pump room and receiving pool.
A Piazza Fountain Working Group , chaired by MCS, meets regularly to progress the restoration, while a wider Steering Group, chaired by Engage Liverpool, meets occasionally to involve other local stakeholders.
A Structural Engineer’s survey has confirmed that it is possible to restore the original water depth.
To enable us to fully finalise the restoration proposals, a firm of Engineering Surveyors has undertaken a detailed dimensional survey and generated at 3D interactive computer model of the fountain complex.
Seals aimed at preventing the buckets leaking have been designed by the leading seal manufacturer and the prototype seal purchased ready for testing on one of the smaller buckets.
Discussions are also underway with Welsh Slate and a leading mosaic tile manufacturer on the feasibility of restoring the original wall tiling on the fountain using polished dark blue grey Welsh slate mosaic tiles.
An Expression of Interest for National Lottery Heritage Funding was submitted in April 2023 and the NLHF have asked for more clarity on the future management and maintenance arrangements for the Fountain before they will consider our bid. We are therefore looking to set up a charitable trust to oversee the restoration and manage the fountain. We have had preliminary discussions with both the leaseholder and Liverpool City Council in recent months.
We are also working up a community engagement and events programme for the eventual re-opening of the fountain.
Autumn 2024 update
The spalling reinforced concrete of the structure has been repaired by a founder member of the Friends of the Piazza Fountain who is a specialist builder, ready for the fountain to be temporarily repainted in the same colours and restarted again.
See work in progress HERE
In October, a customised radial shaft seal, designed by the leading seal manufacture to stop the bucket leaking at the bearings, was tested on a temporarily removed smaller bucket by a Liverpool firm of precision engineers. The firm set up a test rig in their workshop to exactly replicate the tipping action of the fountain, having first purchased and machined down a new hard-wearing phosphor bronze axle/supply pipe and manufactured a stainless-steel seal housing to fix to the test bucket. The test was successful but revealed leakages in other places as shown by the firm’s video at Seal Test Video.
Official permission has been obtained to install a Temporary Information Board on the walls of the fountain once the repainting has been completed with a QR code for people to access more information and consider making a donation to the campaign.