Leigh Alston undertook a Level 2 historic building survey of the disused pumping station and water treatment works in November 2017 in order to inform a planning application for conversion (CBC planning application 172738).<1> The station was part of a major regional expansion in the water supply infrastructure during the 1930s to satisfy the increasing demand for piped water, and was built by Colchester Borough Corporation to pump water from a borehole 250m south of the river. Ownership passed to the Colchester and District Water Board in 1960, which extracted up to 792,000 gallons per day, and in 1974 to Anglian Water which sold the building in 2017 having built a replacement to the north. A detached station house was added before 1956. The Mount Bures station was constructed (like Jumbo water tower, Balkerne Hill, Colchester) in red brick and tile of the highest quality, with a moulded stone string course, arched windows of gauged brick and four half-timbered gables. The sole concession to Modernism was the fine reeded stone surround of the main entrance, but this combination of Romanesque, Mock Gothic and Art Deco creates a striking and picturesque exterior that reflects a pre-war pride in public-works architecture.