‘I switched them on’, said the little boy in the blue anorak proudly to his class mates from the Muddy Paws preschool group. Standing against the harbour wall, just tall enough to see over, they were all watching the newly recommissioned fountains on Bideford Quay sending jets of water high into the blue sky on a bright early spring morning. Even if the wind still had a chill in it, the fountains were keeping the attention of these young eyes and some older ones too.

It is 17 years since the fountains last operated but with the help of a government grant, they have been completely restored. Now, with improved pumps and a remote management system operated from a mobile phone, as the tide rises a reservoir chamber under the quay fills. The fountain pumps automatically switch on when there is sufficient water in the chamber. The fountains will work best on higher tides as the reservoir chamber will fill and refill quickly. The pumps will not operate unless the tide is greater than 2 metres above Ordnance Datum (OD – the vertical reference datum used for measuring land heights, representing mean sea level at Newlyn, Cornwall) as the chamber will not fill. But with the second highest tidal range in the world here on the Bristol Channel, that means that there won’t be many days when the fountains will not be reaching up into the sky and attracting onlookers of all ages. 

There have been concerns expressed about the colour of the water in the fountain plumes sometimes being brown. This happens when the fountains first get going as they get rid of the sediment accumulated in the tank. River water naturally contains large amounts of sediment but, with so much concern about sewage dumping now, the harbour authority has been careful not to take any risks. A wind sensor means that the fountains will never operate when there is a chance water could blow back onto the quay and the fountains can be halted if there is a pollution incident. 

Apart from being a timely reminder to everyone to do more to clean up our river, the renovation of tidal fountains is a striking visual way of bringing attention to our beautiful local natural environment and as well as our long maritime history. As the Heritage Harbour panel on the Harbour Office wall reminds us, we are ‘shaped by the tides, united by heritage’.