Site of historic pumping station

Image: © Chris Allen Taken: 6 Apr 2011

The weeds in the foreground have grown on the backfilled site of an archaeological excavation of the foundations of a Boulton & Watt canal pumping steam engine. This was the site of the Lawley Street (or Ashted) Pumping Station (started operating 1812) with an 1811 single acting beam pumping engine. The engine is preserved at the Henry Ford Museum in the USA and has a cast iron beam with parallel motion at each end. The cylinder is 36" bore by 7' stroke and rated at 24.1 horsepower at 10 strokes per minute. The engine operated for 110 years. Although the archaeological report - http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/oasis_reports/archaeol1/ahds/dissemination/pdf/archaeol1-36373_1.pdf - states this to be an atmospheric engine, it clearly isn't - it's a low-pressure single acting engine with steam admitted above the piston and a vacuum below (an atmospheric engine has an open topped cylinder with steam being used to create a vacuum below the piston and only the atmosphere above it). I looked for this with Ashley Dace in February but we completely failed to recognise it for what it is.

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