Handpump maintenance - 100 years on?!

Pleased to see the handpump in the little town square of Ampthill, close by where I live, has been undergoing some capital maintenance.

Courtesy of Richard Carter lending me his copy of 'Water Supply of Beds and Northants', dated 1909, we read "Ampthill Town Pump - Shaft of nine feet in diameter. Water trickles in slowly all round, but principally on the south; level 6.5ft up; unfit to drink (Feb 1894) Lower Greensand to clay, 20ft."

So it's been unfit to drink for 127 years ... but we are still doing maintenance? Excellent!

It does look very smart, just below the clock tower if anybody ever gets to visit.