As I was wandering around New Malden I spotted another cattle trough. “A Righteous Man Regardeth The Life Of His Beast.” This caught my attention because I’ve seen one before, languishing at the end of a street where I used to live - Lyham Road, near Clapham. A fairly bizarre big concrete thing that occasionally had flowers but more often garbage in it.
I’ve been doing a little bit of hunting around the web to find about these things. It seems that they were set up in the mid to late 19th century (the first was set up in 1859) by the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association. This charitable organisation created hundreds of large stone troughs and drinking fountains throughout London and elsewhere. There is an excellent advertisment found in Burke’s Peerage (which asks for donations) and Dickens’ Dictionary of London mentions them:
“Drinking Fountains.?. Until the last few years London was ill-provided with public drinking fountains and cattle troughs. This matter is now well looked after by the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association, which has erected and is now maintaining nearly 800 fountains and troughs, at which an enormous quantity of water is consumed daily. It is estimated that 300,000 people take advantage of the fountains on a summer?s day, and a single trough has supplied the wants of 1,800 horses in one period of 24 hours. Several ornamental fountains have been provided by private munificence. Amongst these may be instanced the Baroness Burdett Coutts?s beautiful fountains in Victoria-park and Regent?s-park the Maharajah of Vizianagram?s in Hyde-park; Mrs. Brown?s, by Thornycroft, in Hamilton-place, Mr. Wheeler?s at the north of Kew-bridge; and Mr. Buxton?s at Westminster.”
And, of course, given that this is the internet and all, we have a little website devoted to them: The Horse Trough Pages 