Mill Meece Pumping Station is a 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...

, located in the village of Millmeece in 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...

. Its function, powered by steam engine

Steam engine

A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...

s, was to pump water from borehole

Borehole

A borehole is the generalized term for any narrow shaft bored in the ground, either vertically or horizontally. A borehole may be constructed for many different purposes, including the extraction of water or other liquid or gases , as part of a geotechnical investigation, environmental site...

s to a reservoir in Hanchurch, from which it flows by gravity to supply the Potteries

Stoke-on-Trent

Stoke-on-Trent , also called The Potteries is a city in Staffordshire, England, which forms a linear conurbation almost 12 miles long, with an area of . Together with the Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme Stoke forms The Potteries Urban Area...

 area.

Description

Mill Meece pumping station lies approximately 5 miles west of Stone

Stone, Staffordshire

Stone is an old market town in Staffordshire, England, situated about seven miles north of Stafford, and around seven miles south of the city of Stoke-on-Trent. It is the second town, after Stafford itself, in the Borough of Stafford, and has long been of importance from the point of view of...

. It is the second pumping station to be constructed in the area, the first being three miles to the north in the village of Hatton. There are four boreholes on the Mill Meece site from which water is lifted.

Water is raised at Mill Meece by lift pumps which deliver water to an underground tank. From there the water is lifted further by ram pumps. Both the lift and ram pumps are powered by two horizontal tandem compound Corliss valve

Corliss Steam Engine

A Corliss steam engine is a steam engine, fitted with rotary valves and with variable valve timing patented in 1849, invented by and named after the American engineer George Henry Corliss in Providence, Rhode Island....

 engines using steam raised by three Lancashire boilers. The efficiency of steam-raising is increased by a Green's economiser.

History

The pumping station was first put to work with one engine, two boreholes and two boilers in 1915 though did not pump to the public water supply until 1919. The second engine pumping from two new boreholes first pumped water in 1928. Both engines continued to operate until 22 December 1979. Water is still pumped from the Mill Meece site by electric pumps, but the steam engines remain in their original location.

Visiting

The Mill Meece pumping station is now operated by a charity, the Mill Meece Pumping Station Preservation Trust. The website listed below provides details of when it is open to the public.

External links

• Mill Meece pumping station website