Burton upon Trent, UK: Claymills Victorian Pumping Station

(3D Satellite, 674 photos)

This historic sewage pumping plant is now a working steam engine museum.

Street View, Aug 2022

You can't see the smokestack in the above street view, so I include the 3D Satellite view. The two side buildings each house two of the four beam pumps. The building in the middle holds the boilers.

3D Satellite

The Claymills Victorian Pumping Station posted 22 photos with the comment: "Our next steaming event is on the 23rd & 24th of September! And this is a rather special one for us. We are planning on running A engine (the last of our 4 beam engines to come back to life) for the first time. The engine will start for the first time on the 23rd at 12 noon. We hope you can all join us for this very special event. The restoration was started by the volunteers in 2019. Although the mechanical restoration is now complete there are still some years of cosmetic work to do. The engine last ran in anger in 1969. This is not an event to miss. Our following steaming is our 30th anniversary of restoration starting steaming on the 28th and 29th of October, on these days we plan to run all 4 beam engines together, on the orrigional boiler plant. Here are a few photos giving a small insight into the restoration of A engine. Many will notice AB engine house is generally in a far worse state cosmetically than CD as it stood for many many years with no roof."

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A engine ready to run

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The governor on A engine prior to restoration

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B engine , giving an idea of overall condition in AB

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A engine with all parallel motion & beam main bearings stolen, new bearings were machined by the volunteers

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Cylinder top prior to restoration

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Fitting of the new 12inch dia main bearing , machined by the volunteers.
Ross Dyson: Was a new bottom half bearing fitted also?
Keith Smigle: Ross Dyson I'm sure only the top half was missing. Bottom probably still in good serviceable condition.
Ross Dyson: Keith Smigle the bottom was probably to hard to get out for its scrap value.

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Machining the new condensing water valve (original stolen) in the Victorian workshop.

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Motion components removed during restoration

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Motion components being removed during the restoration

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New top for the governor after machining

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Radius rods off the engine being lowered into the big lathe for machining

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Refitted parallel motion on the flywheel end

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Restored paint work on the flywheel

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Refitting of the big end bearing

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Refitting of the HP valves.

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Beam main bearings during restoration

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First day of restoration back in 2019

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Before work started on A engine

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Fitted main bearing

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Fitting of expansion joints to the transfer pipes between the top and bottom valve chest (original copper ones stolen)

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Restored copper expansion joint for the steam main to connect the engine.

The Claymills Victorian Pumping Station posted 27 photos with the comment: "The first run of A engine, the last of the 4 wolf compound beam engines takes the number of original full size engines on site that are running on steam from the original boilers to 32. All of these will Be running this weekend ! This post is all about the smaller engines. The pumping station has 4 wolf compound beam engines plus :"

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One of the most important engines on the site , the halls boiler feed pump. Fitted in 1940 and is still the main feed pump for the Lancashire boilers to this day. Found in the feed pump house.

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The Edward bennis stoker engine. Installed around 1910 to drive the mechanical stokers on the Lancashire boilers. This engine can be found in the feed pump house.

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The large Buxton and Thornley boiler feed pump. Used for filling the boilers and flushing through the greens economisers. This engine can also be found in the feed pump house.

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One of the pair of greens economiser engines. Found at the back of the boilers and added around 1937. Although the tube banks are no longer in the feed circuit the engines still drive the soot scraping mechanism.

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The other side greens economiser, this one still retains much of it’s original brass, the other one had all of this removed while the site was derelict.

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A very small Buxton and Thornley steam engine. Originally the reserve slacking pump on the sewage treatment side of the plant it now circulates the cooling water in our pre heating boiler. This engine can be found on top of the boilers.

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The small Buxton and Thornley feed pump. This engine draws cold water straight out of the underground well and can be used to feed the boilers. It also feeds the condensing water jets for starting the beam engines. This engine is at the end of the boiler house.

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This non reversing railway winch was used to pull the wagons of coal into the boiler house. Using and endless wire rope. A clamp was then attached to the wagon. This engine can be found on the CD side of the boiler house.

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The portable Buxton and Thornley pump. This engine could be wheeled in where water or sewage needed to be moved. This engine is usually demonstrated on the yard on a steaming day.

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The reversing Wilson railway winch. Originally used to help unblock the network of sewage pipe work with steam coming from a portable boiler when off site. This engine can now be found on the yard on a steaming day.

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The spare baring engine. Being the same as the baring engines found in the 2 engine houses we believe this one has done very little running before being restored in 2019. Being discovered as a kit of parts in the last site head engineers garage. The baring engine gets the main pumping engines into starting position. This engine can be found on the yard on a steaming day.

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The agitator engine. This engine drove agitating paddles in the sewage inlet pits before it got drawn into the main pumping engines. This engine can be found in the agitator house.

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The pearns pump. This engine was known as the slacking pump and was used to pump water onto the lime being added to the incoming sewage. This engine originally lived in the now demolished lime shed. It now lives in the agitator house.

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The Massey steam hammer , found in the blacksmiths forge and still in very regular use.

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The Vernon and Guest vertical steam engine. Found in the workshop driving all the line shafting powering all of the machinery.

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The home made vertical twin dynamo engine. Built on site from some new castings and some existing parts around 1906 and drives a 30 amp dynamo. Originally for daytime lighting. This engine can be found in the dynamo house.

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The Buxton and Thornley dynamo engine , this drives the 50 amp open frame crimp ton dynamo. Believed to be the oldest working one left in the country. This engine provided night time lighting and can be found in the dynamo house.

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The marshal horizontal storm pump engine. Originally found in the lime shed driving a large impeller pump for moving large volumes of storm water that was incoming with the sewage. Now found in E engine house.

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The second agitator engine. This engine drove the agitator paddles in the incoming sewage pits in the lime shed and is now housed in E engine house.

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The 1908 Ruston proctor portable engine. Originally this worked on site as a portable engine then after the lime mixing engine found in the lime shed failed around 1930 and the portable needed boiler work, it was decided to sink the engine in and run it like a stationary engine. This engine is now displayed in E engine house.

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The Hughes pump. Believed to date from 1865 and was on the experimental plant , now found in E engine house.

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The Bailey steam pump. Originally it lived at the Burton Victorian baths. This engine was always maintained at the pumping station. Now displayed in E engine house.

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The small Westminster engine (blue) , this engine worked on the experimental sewage treatment plant. Along with the high speed sissons engine and lee jowl pump. This engine was used to draw cold water out of the well in order to feed through the water softening plant. This engine was added in the 1940s. Both of these engines are in E engine house.

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The CD engine house compressor engine , used to fill the surge vessels on the beam engines with compressed air. This engine can be found at the back of CD engine house.

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The AB engine house compressor engine. Much the same as the CD engine on the compressor end but this engine also has a small crankshaft driven dosing pump for pumping tannin into the boilers. This is still used to do this job and the engine can be found in the back of AB engine house.

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The CD baring engine. Used to bar the beam engines round into the correct starting position. This engine can be found on the CD driving floor.

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The AB baring engine. Much the same as the CD engine and can be found on the AB driving floor.

The Claymills Victorian Pumping Station posted four photos with the comment: "Our August bank holiday marked days 3&4 of our biomass trials on one of the Lancashire boilers. Day 1 saw firing on raw dried wood chips and day 2 on 65mm compressed pellets. The compressed pellets proved more successful but we still have a lot of work to do. September should yield some more results with 2 more styles of biomass on trial ! And Of course the first run of A engine!  (our 4th beam engine) finding a suitable alternative fuel is a long process but we are learning more and more each day we fire with something new. We are keeping a constant load & water feed temp then metering the water consumption on each boiler. Watch this space we will keep you all up to date."

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The virtual tour is interesting because it puts the steam engines in context. These four photos are from the Dynamo Room and show the dynamo as well as its steam engine, an earlier dynamo and a "slate control panel".

Buxton & Thornley Steam engine driving a Crompton dynamo.

According to the Science Museum, this is the oldest working steam driven dynamo in the country.

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2:38 video
The Claymills Victorian Pumping Station
The next steaming will be the 28th and 29th of October ! October 2023 is a special month for the Claymills Pumping Engines Trust as it marks 30 years since the start of the restoration effort. Over the past 30 years all four beam engines , 2 Lancashire boilers and 28 smaller steam engines have been restored from derelict condition. In celebration of the trusts achievements we will be running all four beam engines simultaneously! We don’t think this has ever been done before so don’t miss out. We will also hopefully have a number of road steam engines in attendance! We hope to see you all there. Here is a video of the very first test run of A engine since 1969. A lot of adjustment was needed after this but the engine ran.