Victorian Pumping Stations by Trevor Yorke

Author:Trevor Yorke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2017-12-12T05:00:00+00:00

The chimney tower at the former Bestwood Pumping Station, Nottinghamshire, which has been restored as a restaurant and spa.

In Nottingham industrial growth around the cloth industry had been rapid and pollution in the river water had become an issue. In 1845 the existing small water companies were amalgamated into the Nottingham Waterworks Company, with Thomas Hawksley as its engineer. He created new supplies of clean water from wells dug into the porous sandstone under the north of the city. A new pumping station was built at the Park Works at the top of The Ropewalk, with additional ones added at Bagthorpe in 1857 and Bestwood in 1871. The old company was taken over by the Nottingham Corporation in 1880 and they sought to increase supply as demand continued to grow. Their engineer, Marriott Ogle Tarbotton, had test boreholes dug at a site near the village of Papplewick, north of Nottingham, where Hawksley had already built a reservoir. With successful results, a large pumping station was planned with two engine and boiler houses served by a tall single chimney, although ultimately only one set of buildings was completed. Inside these were two 140hp rotative steam engines supplied by James Watt and Co., whilst steam was supplied by a row of six Lancashire boilers from the Galloway Company. The engines pumped water out of the 200-foot-deep well and up a further 130 feet into Hawksley’s reservoir, which supplied it under gravity to Nottingham. Usually only one engine would be working at a time but on Mondays both often had to be used; as factories had been closed over the weekend the air was relatively clean so Monday was the best day for housewives to wash and hang out the laundry, causing an increased demand for water.

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