IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Musgrave Road, BOLTON, BL1 4HW

A collection of steam engines being restored. This part of the large building is probably across the grid line from the larger part.

This is the front plate from a "Lancashire" boiler. The Lancashire design which was patented by Fairbairn and Hetherington of Manchester in 1844, was the most common type of boiler used to produce steam in textile mills. A complete Lancashire boiler is over 30ft long, too big to be preserved in its entirety at the museum and so the exhibit is just the front-plate, which gives some indication of how it might have looked in a boiler-house. This particular boiler was obtained from Halliwell Mills, Bolton and was manufactured by Hick Hargreaves Ltd of Bolton in 1906 for a working pressure of 160 psi (Image]). Other wording on the front reads: No. 4538 · TINKER. SHENTON & Co. LIMITED, MAKERS, HYDE · AD 1901 · NEAR MANCHESTER

Detail from the front of the boiler plate at Bolton Steam Museum (Image]). Shows the maker's name as HICK HARGREAVES & Co. Ltd ENGINEERS, BOLTON It also shows an operating pressure of 160psi and that it has been tested to a pressure of 255 psi.

Water cannot simply be added to a boiler working under steam by turning a tap; the water has to be pumped into the boiler against the steam pressure already there. This small unit manufactured by Worthington-Simpson Ltd is an example of a common design. It has twin steam cylinders (on the left) directly coupled to twin pumping cylinders (on the right). The movement of the pump-rods also operates the lever connected to the steam valve-chest (top-left), thus making the whole unit self-acting.

This vertical single cylinder engine was built by Thomas T Crook in Bolton and used in the company's works. It was then displayed in the Bolton museum for some years but then taken off display. It eventually arrived here and the Northern Mill Engine Society has restored it to a steamable condition. See Image Space considerations mean it is likely to be the last full size engine (albeit a 'tiddler') to be acquired for display at this excellent museum. In fact a further engine has been acquired on loan, also a 'tiddler'. This is the Bennis Westminster engine that used to drive Fred Dibnah's workshop.

The shaft of sunlight is probably illuminating dust in the air rather than steam.

This is a Bennis of Bolton 'Westminster Engine' that was used to drive mechanical stokers at Manor Mill Chadderton - Image It was later used by the late Fred Dibnah to power his garden workshop - Image It is now on loan from Fred's sons. It is named Caroline after one of his daughters. The big lump behind with Radcliffe on its bedplate is the fire pump from Fern Mill, Shaw.

The upper level of this re-erected steam engine that was originally installed secondhand at Jonas Kenyon in Denby Dale and was removed in the late 1970s, with myself having a very small part in this (I attended a few working parties). It was stored in the open for many years - Image - and was in a pretty poor condition when it came to Bolton. The team have turned it back into a very creditable exhibit.

The prime mover here is not steam, as one might expect, but a National gas engine that originally ran on coal gas. It is belt driving a dynamo (DC device) by F H Royce of Manchester. Royce went on to be one half of Rolls Royce and moved into automobile and aero engine manufacture.