Land Drainage and Sewage Pumping Stations with Steam Engines
| Tue, 10 Feb 2009 09:46 Chris Allen |
This is a shorter gallery than the water works one but still contains several significant machines. It is my intention to post interior and exterior views of them all. We will start in Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire with the three old surviving beam engines. These all drove scoop wheels by reduction gearing. The scoopwheel is effectively a low breast shot waterwheel in reverse and lifts water to a higher level. The grand-daddy of them all is the 1831 Butterley engine at Stretham       Next is the 1833 example at Pinchbeck, claimed by some to be another Butterley product.      Last of the beam engines and the only one in steam is at Dogdyke Pumping Station near Tattershall Castle       I will post one of the beam engine as soon as possible. |
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| Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:36 Chris Allen |
Next we move to the Somerset Levels. These had a variety of steam engines by various incarnations of the London firm of Easton & Amos. The oldest is from 1861 and is at Westonzoyland    . This site is now a museum and has gained two engines from Aller Moor that came from two other pumping stations on the Levels.Curry Moor Pumping Station dates from 1864 and the engine  is housed in a modern (1950s) building alongside the later diesel pumping station  .The last of the pumping stations is Aller Moor   . This has now been sold off but the engine is to remain in situ. |
| Thu, 12 Feb 2009 22:13 Chris Allen |
The most recent of the surviving in situ steam engines is at Owston Ferry   where there is a surviving Marshall horizontal tandem compound engine  . A preservation group has been formed to preserve this and are facing the perennial dilemma of conservation versus renewal as needed to steam the plant. There is also a horizontal diesel and a more modern diesel in a more recent extension. The station has now been largely replaced by a new electric station. |
| Thu, 12 Feb 2009 22:31 Chris Allen |
Sewage pumping stations are coming next. There are not as many as for waterworks and there is a preponderance of big rotative beam engines. There are no Cornish type sewage pumps and no surviving in situ inverted vertical engine sewage pumps. There is one thoroughly unique set of horizontal pumps - the world's only workable Davey differential engines. |
| Sun, 22 Mar 2009 23:14 Chris Allen |
Crossness Pumping Station  was part of Bazalgette's solution to the great stink and contains four large beam pumping engines   by James watt & Co. These were later converted to triple expansion working and last worked in 1953. Restoration is now well under way.There are two other pumping stations with four beam engines. Claymills  was built in 1885 and contains a pair of Gimson Woolf compound engines      in each of two engine houses flanking a central boiler house  . A Trust has restored the site to steam operation  . The other is at Abbey Pumping station, Leicester  and has four Gimson engines in the one room  .Three stations have a pair of engines. Oldest is Eastney  with a pair of James Watt & Co Woolf compounds   . There are also later diesel engines  . Next is West Ham  with a pair of Lilleshall Woolf compound beam engines  . Newest is Coleham Head, Shrewsbury  with a pair of Renshaw beam engines built 1901  . |
| Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:25 Chris Allen |
A single Woolf compound beam engine is to be found at Markfield Road Pumping Station, Tottenham   . This is a unique 8 column independent engine    built by Wood Bros of Sowerby Bridge.There are two stations with horizontal pumping engines. At Low Hall Depot, Walthamstow  there is a pair of Marshall Single cylinder engines that could be coupled as a twin   . These drove centrifugal pumps by belt and used steam raised by refuse destructor fired boilers. Finally, we have Cheddars Lane Pumping station, now the Cambridge Museum of technology   . This is home to a pair of 1894 Davey "differential" horizontal tandem compound, non-rotative engines  . Steam was raised in Babcock & Wilcox water tube boilers with refuse destructor cells  . In 1909 two 80 hp National gas engines were installed to deal with storm water  . |
| Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:58 Chris Allen |
New pictures added for Markfield Road, Tottenham and Low Hall Depot, Walthamstow. |
| Sun, 25 Oct 2009 13:54 Chris Allen |
Updated Crossness, Claymills, Eastney, Markfield Road and Walthamstow. |
