John Maude & Sons Ltd, Bankhouse Mills - steam engine

Introduction

The photograph on this page of John Maude & Sons Ltd, Bankhouse Mills - steam engine by Chris Allen as part of the Geograph project.

The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.

There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk

John Maude & Sons Ltd, Bankhouse Mills - steam engine

Image: © Chris Allen Taken: Unknown

A Pollit & Wigzell horizontal cross compound built in 1920 and installed secondhand in 1950. It ran until 1976 and I saw it running twice. It was one of the first engines I saw running and it made a deep impression. It was scrapped in 1980 and I believe I took this picture about 1978. Maude's was a woollen mill and has now been redeveloped for housing. The engine house was built over a stream - handy for condensing water. The Corliss valve cylinders were 18" & 35" x 48" and it was good for 600 hp at 80 rpm on steam at 160 psi. It rope drove an alternator. The rather soft focus rocking levers at the lower edge of the picture drove the air pump from the low pressure crosshead. The Lumb governor is seen at the edge of the flywheel. The cylinders had tailrods to help support the weight of the pistons. This was from my early phase of colour print photography and I have yet to find all the negatives from that era (1977-beginning of 1980)

Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0