Anglian Water is this week celebrating the 150th anniversary since its historic underground reservoir in the heart of Norwich was officially opened and began supplying water to the city.

The Sultzer Reservoir is one of two underground Victorian treated water reservoirs originally built in January 1871 at Lakenham, Norwich, which are still used by the water company today.

Between them, they store 12 million litres of drinking water before it makes its way to customers’ taps.

Paul Naylor, Regional Supply Manager for Anglian Water, said:

“The Sultzer Reservoir is one of the oldest and most unique storage facilities we have in our region. At 150 years young, it continues to play an important part of the water network in Norwich and ensures the supply of drinking water to our customers in the city and surrounding areas.”

In 2019, as part of its routine maintenance programme, Anglian Water engineers undertook work to inspect the structure of the reservoir to ensure it can continue to supply safe, clean drinking water to customers in Norwich for years to come.

Over 500 underground treated water reservoirs are used by Anglian across the East of England.

Unlike the large surface water reservoirs like Alton and Rutland, which store river water before treatment, underground storage reservoirs hold fully treated, safe, clean drinking water and provide resilient storage at points across Anglian’s 38,000km network of water pipeline.