Cambridge Museum of Technology

Last updated

Cambridge Museum of Technology
4649.CambridgeMuseumOfTechnology.jpg
The pumping station steam engine house
Cambridge Museum of Technology
Established1970
LocationCheddars Lane, Cambridge
Coordinates 52°12′46″N0°08′36″E / 52.2127°N 0.1433°E / 52.2127; 0.1433
Website www.museumoftechnology.com

The Cambridge Museum of Technology is an industrial heritage museum situated in Cambridge, England. The original building, a Scheduled Ancient Monument, [1] housed a combined sewage pumping and waste destructor station built in 1894. The museum helps people to explore, enjoy, and learn about their industrial heritage by celebrating the achievements of local industries and the people who worked in them. The large site on the River Cam has green spaces for picnics and a fun, relaxed atmosphere for families. There are audio-visual displays, hands-on exhibits, and children's activities, as well as traditional museum displays and historic buildings. The Victorian Pumping Station with its original machinery showcases 19th-century engineering and technology. Displays on the forgotten industries of Cambridge reveal an alternative side of the city's history to the famous colleges. And the story is brought into the 20th century with exhibitions on innovative local companies in our new Pye building. Featuring Pye (Electronics company) and Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company.

Contents

History of the pumping station

The Cheddars Lane Pumping Station was originally opened in 1894 in a scheme which also saw the creation of a sewage farm at Milton, two and a quarter miles away. Household rubbish was burnt to raise steam, to power the engines which pumped sewage to the Milton sewage farm. At the farm it was used as a fertiliser to grow the crops which fed the horses that pulled the carts which collected the rubbish and brought it to the pumping station. Even the ash from the burnt rubbish could be used in road making. [2]

1894, original equipment

Originally, the boilers used to provide steam to the sewage pumping engines were heated by the burning of waste collected around the city in destructor furnaces, these are the only near complete examples surviving. It represents a typical early design and layout of a good medium-sized municipal destructor, buildings, and its equipment and chimney.

Hathorn Davey 1894 Pumping Engine Hathorn Davey 1894 Pumping Engine-geograph-3090561-by-Ashley-Dace.jpg
Hathorn Davey 1894 Pumping Engine

The museum's main attraction are two Hathorn Davey steam engines, one of which is fully operational and often runs on steam weekends. The purpose of these engines were to lift foul water (sewage and rain water) from the sump immediately below it to the sewage farm at Milton, the total lift being about 43 ft. [3] These engines were designed to pump 250,000 gallons of sewage per hour, a job which they undertook until 1968, when a new electric engine house was built adjacent to the station, although this site shut down in 1994.

The chimney shaft is 175 ft. in height, octagonal with square base, lined with; fire-bricks for a height of 50 ft., and is 6 ft. 6 in. internal diameter at the top. [3] In 1992 the chimney was laddered by Fred Dibnah, who undertook painting and pointing repairs and was featured in a BBC programme.

The building now used as the print shop was built as a public health disinfector in about 1900. Waste steam was used for sterilising bed linen and clothing from municipal hospitals and old people's homes and latterly a workshop for the pumping station.

1909, gas engines

TL4659 Cambridge Gas Engines TL4659 Cambridge Gas Engines.jpeg
TL4659 Cambridge Gas Engines

To cope with pumping demand after heavy rainfall, caused by the expansion of Cambridge, in 1909 two 94 hp National gas engines were added to the pumping station. These engines drove, by a flat belt, two 15inch Rees Returbo centrifugal pumps, but these were replaced in 1935 by Gwynnes Limited pumps. [4] They could pump to Milton or to temporary storage in storm water tanks, but the prime movers of the sewage remained the steam engines. The storm water tanks had a capacity of 1,085,275 gallons. [5] Of these gas engines, currently one is in working order.

1923, new boiler

By the 1920s, a combination of the reducing calorific value of the waste and an end to Sunday collection of waste, led to an additional Babcock & Wilcox boiler being installed and used when there was insufficient waste for the destructor furnaces. This boiler was fuelled by coke, a by-product of the Coal gas production process, often being sourced from the Cambridge gas works next to the pumping station. By 1942 this boiler provided the main steam supply, the destructor cells being used only for trade refuse and standby duty. [4]

1937, electric pump

An electric pump was the last to be installed on the site, in 1937. A Crompton Parkinson electric pump motor drove the 18inch (0.45m) diameter Gwynnes centrifugal pump 114 hp electric motor that can be seen at the river end of its dedicated room. Its purpose was to cope with the ever increasing storm surges from the new housing estates.

Collections

Other exhibits include a working steam winch, hauling a narrow gauge incline railway using side tipping skip wagons to assist with the ash removal; various other engines (steam and otherwise); a print room with a large collection of old printing technology [6] including a Linotype machine; a large collection of electrical apparatuses and more.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steam engine</span> Engine that uses steam to perform mechanical work

A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be transformed, by a connecting rod and crank, into rotational force for work. The term "steam engine" is generally applied only to reciprocating engines as just described, not to the steam turbine. Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separated from the combustion products. The ideal thermodynamic cycle used to analyze this process is called the Rankine cycle. In general usage, the term steam engine can refer to either complete steam plants, such as railway steam locomotives and portable engines, or may refer to the piston or turbine machinery alone, as in the beam engine and stationary steam engine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Power station</span> Facility generating electric power

A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coleham Pumping Station</span> Historical pumping station in Shrewsbury, England

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abbey Pumping Station</span> Science and Technology Museum in Leicester, United Kingdom

The Abbey Pumping Station is a museum of science and technology in Leicester, England, on Corporation Road, next to the National Space Centre. With four working steam-powered beam engines from its time as a sewage pumping station, it also houses exhibits for transport, public health, light and optics, toys and civil engineering.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cogeneration</span> Simultaneous generation of electricity and useful heat

Cogeneration or combined heat and power (CHP) is the use of a heat engine or power station to generate electricity and useful heat at the same time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pumping station</span> Facilities including pumps and equipment for pumping fluids from one place to another

Pumping stations, also called pumphouses in situations such as drilled wells and drinking water, are facilities containing 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 is an integral part of a pumped-storage hydroelectricity installation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abbey Mills Pumping Station</span> Pumping station in London, England

Abbey Mills Pumping Station is a sewage pumping station in Mill Meads, East London, operated by Thames Water. The pumping station lifts sewage from the London sewerage system into the Northern Outfall Sewer and the Lee Tunnel, which both run to Beckton Sewage Treatment Works.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claymills Pumping Station</span>

Claymills Pumping Station is a restored Victorian sewage pumping station on the north side of Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, England DE13 0DA. It was designed by James Mansergh and used to pump sewage to the sewage farm at Egginton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Injector</span> Type of pump using high pressure fluid to entrain a lower pressure fluid

An injector is a system of ducting and nozzles used to direct the flow of a high-pressure fluid in such a way that a lower pressure fluid is entrained in the jet and carried through a duct to a region of higher pressure. It is a fluid-dynamic pump with no moving parts except a valve to control inlet flow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crossness Pumping Station</span> Sewage pumping station in London

The Crossness Pumping Station is a former sewage pumping station designed by the Metropolitan Board of Works's chief engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette and architect Charles Henry Driver. It is located at Crossness Sewage Treatment Works, at the eastern end of the Southern Outfall Sewer and the Ridgeway path in the London Borough of Bexley. Constructed between 1859 and 1865 by William Webster, as part of Bazalgette's redevelopment of the London sewerage system, it features spectacular ornamental cast ironwork, that Nikolaus Pevsner described as "a masterpiece of engineering – a Victorian cathedral of ironwork".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Balmain Power Station</span>

The Balmain Power Station was located at Iron Cove, 4 km (2 mi) from Sydney in New South Wales, Australia. The station no longer exists and residential properties now occupy the site. This plant is often confused with the White Bay Power Station, the remains of which are still standing in Rozelle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Museum of Power</span>

The Museum of Power is located in the former Southend Waterworks Langford Pumping Station in Langford, Essex, England. It is on the B1019, on the main road from Maldon to Hatfield Peverel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Westonzoyland Pumping Station Museum</span> English industrial heritage museum

The Westonzoyland Pumping Station Museum of Steam Power and Land Drainage is a small industrial heritage museum dedicated to steam powered machinery at Westonzoyland in the English county of Somerset. It is a Grade II* listed building.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Papplewick Pumping Station</span> Historic site in Nottinghamshire, England

Papplewick Pumping Station, situated in open agricultural land approximately 3 miles (4.8 km) by road from the Nottinghamshire village of Papplewick, was built by Nottingham Corporation Water Department between 1881 and 1884 to pump water from the Bunter sandstone to provide drinking water to the City of Nottingham, in England. Two beam engines, supplied with steam by six Lancashire boilers, were housed in Gothic Revival buildings. Apart from changes to the boiler grates, the equipment remained in its original form until the station was decommissioned in 1969, when it was replaced by four submersible electric pumps.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guthram Gowt</span> Small settlement in the South Holland district of Lincolnshire, England

Guthram Gowt is a small settlement in the South Holland district of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated 5 miles (8 km) both east from Bourne and west from Spalding, and at a bend in the River Glen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manlove, Alliott & Co. Ltd.</span>

Manlove, Alliott & Co. Ltd. was an engineering company based in Nottingham, England. It was also for a time known as Manlove, Alliott, Fryer & Co. Ltd.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dogdyke Pumping Station</span>

The Dogdyke Engine is a drainage engine near Tattershall, Lincolnshire, in England. The drainage of 2,500 acres (1,012 ha) of land around Tattershall was authorised in 1796, and came under the control of the Witham Third District commissioners in 1844

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Witham Third District IDB</span> Human settlement in England

Witham Third District IDB is an English internal drainage board set up under the terms of the Land Drainage Act 1930. The Board inherited the responsibilities of the Witham General Drainage Commissioners, who were first constituted by an Act of Parliament of 1762. They manage the land drainage of an area to the north and east of the River Witham, between Lincoln and Dogdyke, which includes the valley of the River Bain to above Hemingby, and the valleys of Barlings Eau and most of its tributaries, to the north east of Lincoln.

Greenwich Pumping Station, known until c. 1986 as Deptford Pumping Station, is a sewage pumping station in the London Borough of Greenwich built in 1865 to the east of Deptford Creek. It is part of the London sewerage system devised by Sir Joseph Bazalgette in the mid 19th century. Today operated by Thames Water, it is located on the western side of Norman Road, approximately 0.5 km (0.31 mi) south west of Greenwich town centre, on the eastern bank of Deptford Creek, around 0.5 km (0.31 mi) south of its confluence with the River Thames.

Accrington power station was a coal and refuse fired electricity generating station located in the centre of Accrington, Lancashire. The station supplied electricity to Accrington and to Haslingden and the Altham and Clayton-le-Moors areas between 1900 and 1958.

References

  1. Historic England. "Old Cheddar's Lane pumping station (1006896)". National Heritage List for England . Retrieved 1 July 2017.
  2. Cambridge Museum, of Technology. "Rubbish! The History of Waste in Cambridgeshire". An introduction to the Museum's summer exhibition 2012. Archived from the original on 18 June 2012.
  3. 1 2 W, Maxwell (1898). Removal and disposal of town refuse. London.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  4. 1 2 Read, W. L.; K. A. Knell (1971). "Running and Maintaining a steam pumping station : the duties of workmen at Cheddar's Lane Sewage pumping station, 1894-1968". Cambridge University Engineering Society Journal. 41.
  5. Laird, Andrew (1925). Report on Sanitary Condition of the Borough of Cambridge.
  6. "Cambridge Museum of Technology | British Letterpress". 27 August 2009. Retrieved 20 February 2021.