THIS picture shows the town of Mellor, Blackburn, in the early 1900s.

Water supply was a long-standing problem for the hilltop community.

Instead, the village was forced to rely on wells and springs until the formation in 1902 of the village's own water company.

This relieved many many of the residents from the drudgery of carrying buckets to and fro.

It sank a borehole on Mellor Moor, near the Jinny Spring, one of the Wells that the people of Mellor relied on at the time.

The windmill pumping station filled a small reservoir which was originally connected to 100 properties.

But residents at the top end of the village, whose homes were higher than the level of the reservoir, were still forced to carry water as much as a mile.

The water company was taken over by Blackburn's undertaking in 1952.