Claymills pumping station
Encyclopedia
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
sewage pumping station
Pumping station
Pumping stations are facilities including pumps and equipment for pumping fluids from one place to another. They are used for a variety of infrastructure systems, such as the supply of water to canals, the drainage of low-lying land, and the removal of sewage to processing sites.A pumping station...
on the north side of Burton upon Trent
Burton upon Trent
Burton upon Trent, also known as Burton-on-Trent or simply Burton, is a town straddling the River Trent in the east of Staffordshire, England. Its associated adjective is "Burtonian"....
, Staffordshire
Staffordshire
Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It was designed by James Mansergh and used to pump sewage
Sewage
Sewage is water-carried waste, in solution or suspension, that is intended to be removed from a community. Also known as wastewater, it is more than 99% water and is characterized by volume or rate of flow, physical condition, chemical constituents and the bacteriological organisms that it contains...
to the sewage farm at Etwall
Etwall
Etwall is a civil parish and village in Derbyshire, England. It is located southwest from Derby on the A50.-Geography:Etwall is squeezed between the A516, which bypassed the village in February 1992, and the A50. The A516 draws a lot of heavy traffic heading for the M1 north.The village has its...
.
The main pumping plant consists of four Woolf
Arthur Woolf
Arthur Woolf was a Cornish engineer, most famous for inventing a high-pressure compound steam engine. As such he made an outstanding contribution to the development and perfection of the Cornish engine.Woolf left Cornwall in 1785 to work for Joseph Bramah's engineering works in London...
compound, rotative, beam pumping engines
Beam engine
A beam engine is a type of steam engine where a pivoted overhead beam is used to apply the force from a vertical piston to a vertical connecting rod. This configuration, with the engine directly driving a pump, was first used by Thomas Newcomen around 1705 to remove water from mines in Cornwall...
. These are arranged in mirror image pairs, in two separate engine houses, with a central boiler house (containing five Lancashire boilers with economisers) and chimney. The engines were built in 1885 by Gimson and Company
Gimson and Company
Gimson and Company were founded in 1840 by Josiah and Benjamin Gimson on Welford Road in Leicester. The company were listed as Engineers, Ironfounders, Boiler Makers & General Machinists. They later moved to Vulcan Works, Vulcan Street, Humberstone Road, Leicester.-Expansion:Between 1876 and 1878 a...
of Leicester
Leicester
Leicester is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England, and the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest...
. All the engines are similar, and the following description is limited to only one, but applicable to all.
The high-pressure cylinder is 24-inch bore by 6-foot stroke, and the low-pressure cylinder is 38-inch bore by 8-foot stroke. Steam is distributed by means of double beat 'Cornish' valves, mounted in upper and lower valve chests. The cylinders act on one end of the beam, via Watt
James Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world.While working as an instrument maker at the...
's parallel motion. The beam itself is 26 feet 4 inches between end centres, 4 feet deep at the centre, weighs 13 ton
Long ton
Long ton is the name for the unit called the "ton" in the avoirdupois or Imperial system of measurements, as used in the United Kingdom and several other Commonwealth countries. It has been mostly replaced by the tonne, and in the United States by the short ton...
s and is carried on 12 inches (304.8 mm) bearings.
Currently C and D engines are able to run under steam, work is ongoing to restore the A and B engines.
The modern sewage works, run by Severn Trent Water, is alongside the pumping station.