Taw Marsh Waterworks

The Taw Marsh Waterworks is an underground treatment works on the moor about 1.25 miles south of Belstone, built by the North Devon Water Board in the late 1950s and early 1960s to take radon out of water drawn from boreholes on Taw Marsh before it was sent on to supply Devon.

The main building is reinforced concrete, about 33 m long and 8 m wide, with its roof at ground level. Steps lead down at both ends to a central corridor with a long water tank on each side, each about 25 m, and a square pump room at the south end. About 50 square metres of pavement-style skylights let sunlight in: radon was driven off as the water flowed through the tanks in the light, helped by air pipes below. A second building, the balancing tank, stands about 50 m away and managed the flow. The water was pumped on to a processing and distribution station at the top of Belstone village. South West Water, which inherited the works, stopped drawing water from the marsh in the late 1990s.

The building has changed hands several times. South West Water sold it in 2014, and it appeared on the television programme The Restoration Man while privately owned. It was sold at auction in April 2018 for £28,000, when the sale particulars suggested an activity or recreation centre or perhaps a mausoleum, subject to planning. It was offered again by online auction in September 2023 with a guide price of £39,000; we have not found the result.

In 2021 an owner applied to the Dartmoor National Park Authority (reference 0312/21) for a certificate of lawful use as an industrial or storage site. Belstone Parish Council argued that the use had been abandoned and that a water works was not an industrial use, and the Authority rejected the application. A project called Ashes to Dartmoor Columbarium has described plans to turn the old tanks into a columbarium for cremated remains, subject to planning permission; we have not found a decision.

The building is private and inside the North Dartmoor SSSI, with no mains services, and it is fenced to stop walkers and livestock falling down the steps. The owners have an easement over the Duchy of Cornwall's track for vehicles; the public may not take vehicles on to the moor. It can be seen from the footpath that runs up on to the moor from Belstone, about a quarter of an hour from the village.