Chard Museum - steam engine for a balloon
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Chard Museum - steam engine for a balloon 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
Chard Museum - steam engine for a balloon
Image: © Chris Allen Taken: 30 Jun 2023
This is a vertical twin cylinder (duplex) engine with simple slide valves and Stephenson link reversing motion. It was built by John Stringfellow to propel a balloon to relieve the besieged city of Paris in 1870. The city fell before it could be used. Part of the boiler is seen on the left. The Science Museum store at Wroughton has another Stringfellow engine that was built to propel a balloon.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
50.87251
Longitude
-2.969207