Stockton Brook Pumping House

[DHutch]

When we returned down the Caldon though engine lock, we where greeted by the owner of the pumping house there, and after 20minutes on emilyanne he invited us for a "quick look around". Which turned into a full two hour tour, with detailed explanations of its histroy, the work that has been done on it, plans for the future, and a whole load of photographs of the work.

- Unfortunatly ive proberbly forgoten half the details already, and i never thought to take photos of his photos.

- However here the photos i took and some of what i know about this building after our massive tour!!

 

5ton lumps of pitch pine from honduras, £5000 per drain pipe, the whole works!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daniel

[DHutch]

But yeah, really good work going on.

- Its currently owned by a couple who are both artists, mark, who showed us round, did half the art in the grounds of JCB rocester.

 

They bought it becuase it was in dire need of urgent work, with the long term plan of turning it into a venue to hire out for corporate events and weddings.

 

So far they have had to do a lot of work on things not directly relating to the restoration of the building, such as inproving access, putting forward planning aplications, and rehoming the trouble some tennants in the overlooking pair of semi's (which they now also own).

 

However they have repaired the roof on the engine house, as seen in the photos, which was inminantly going to collapse, the beam ends being heavly affected with dryrot, and much of the lead flashing and stonework needing replacing.

- I wish i had the photos he showed, as the state of the beam ends can only be seen to be bealved. Quite supprsing it had remained up at all.

- Each of the lower beams was replaced, with solid peices of pitchpine, as was orginalally used.

- Many of the queen pins and other timber was also replaced with the same, making use of the fire at blackpool pleasure beach and in the amount of pitchpine being imported for work on that. And all the panneling, which in total is 11thousand linear metres worth, apprently. I think.

 

Quite a bit of the brickwork had to be repaired as well, with the northside (back) showing much frost damage to the hard faced bricks. Which was repaired eather using bricks from the long demolished chimey (most of which was found lieing the the woods) or runs of custom feature bricks then had made. Simualarly, all replacment stone work was done was the time. And the roof fully retiled.

 

 

 

The steam engine is long gone, unfortunatly, as are/were the boilers in the ajoining boilerhouse, whos roof is next on the list.

- However the bulk of the deisal/electric set up is still in there, and although it hasnt been run for many years, the engine looks in salvagable condtion to me. Although he didnt profess to know much about it, and does not plan to keep it himself.

- Its a size cyclinder National RV6, coupled with a large dc generator, which was installed in the 60/70's (i think) along with the Morris crane that moved it in.

- This provied backup power for the two 400vdc electric motors, driving the two four-stage impellor pumps in the photograph. With a pair of AC->DC converters being used to power them also. (hence much dc switch gear).

- The fuel tank for the deisal was one of the old lancashire boilers, converted to hold the full (tubes removed), but this had to be removed as a condition of sale, due to its proximity with the canal and the "hazadous substances" inside it.

 

 

There plans now are to secure planning permision for the furture work, and some grant money to continue the work having funded it themselfs almost intierly so far (bar one donation of £4000 from stoke council) possably also letting our the two houses as holiday lets, and/or runing a pair of narrowboats for hire, as a proven "source of income" required for the grants.

 

 

 

 

Daniel

[Ernie]

Thanks Dan, very interesting. We passed by the pump house earlier this year, it’s a lovely building. You were very lucky getting your tour, thanks for sharing it with us.

[SteveE]

Nice pics, Dan. I'm sure I went there on a Bullnose Morris Club trip years ago and seem to remember it being boarded up. There's a bit more on it here

SteveE

[Heartland]

The former waterworks pumping station of 1884, was advertised for sale in 2018. Does anybody know what happened next?

 

 

[DHutch]

I dont know anything of the current news. At a sale proce of £500,000 its a lot of building for the money, given you get two 3bed semis in with!

[Paddle]

It was Guide of £500k for the pumping station (unsold at auction at the time, but I can't see that it's still for sale), AND £400k for the two cottages. The latter are now holiday cottages. https://www.justcottages.co.uk/west-midlands/staffordshire/stockton-brook-waterworks