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72. Tees Cottage Pumping Station, Darlington

North East Index

Scenes of North-East England, Newcastle upon Tyne, Co. Durham & Northumbria - Northumberland

The photographs of Tees Cottage Pumping Station were taken at the Open Day in 2021

The Tees Cottage Pumping Station is a Victorian water pumping station complex at Broken Scar high above the River Tees near Low Coniscliffe just west of Darlington (the site entrance is on Coniscliffe Road - A67 road to Barnard castle). The pumping station was built and developed from 1849 to supply drinking water for Darlington and the surrounding area. It is a Scheduled Ancient Monument of historic interest and houses two completely original pumping engines in fully working order. The first and most important historically is a 1904 beam engine, built by Teasdale Brothers of Darlington, which is still steamed on open days using the two original 1902 Lancashire boilers. There is also a rare 1914 two-cylinder gas internal-combustion engine, the largest such engine surviving in Europe. Both engines can be seen in operation on certain weekends through the year, using the original pumps to pump water up from the River Tees which flows below the cliffs of Broken Scar.
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Beam engine pump House Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

The grand design of the beam engine house of the pumping station and the chimney stack from the boilers in the rear.

The steam and gas engines were superseded in 1928 by electrically powered centrifugal pumps which worked until 1980 (two of which survive). A machine tool workshop has survived, complete with the belt-driven line shafting, as has the on-site blacksmith's forge, which is often fired-up and demonstrated on open days. Three of the four original filter water storage ponds can also be seen at the Tees Cottage Pumping Station.

vintage cars Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

A selection of vintage cars are on view to add extra interest to the Tees Cottage Pumping Station open day.

old fire engine by one of the ponds Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

An old fire engine by one of the ponds.

The Tees Cottage pumping station is considered unique for several reasons. Very few pumping stations are on their original site and using their original boilers. Tees Cottage Pumping Station also has what is considered to be the largest working preserved gas engine in Europe and still has all the electric pumps and switch gear from 1926, and can still pumps water as intended.

Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

The Beam Engine of Tees Cottage Pumping Station

The 1904 beam engine was one of the last waterworks beam engines ever built, the 'tops' in beam engine pumping development. It is a rotative, two-cylinder Woolf compound engine, designed by Glenfield and Kennedy of Kilmarnock and built by Teasdale Bros, under T&C Hawksley, Civil Engineers, London.

The beam is just over 30 feet (9.1 m) long, weighing 25 tons; the flywheel is 21 feet (6.4 m) in diameter, and the high- and low-pressure cylinders measure 18" and 29" respectively (46 cm and 74 cm). It is housed in a splendid building erected for an earlier beam engine in 1849 (pictures above).

The Tees Cottage Pumping Station engine ran almost continuously from 1904 to 1926, when new electric pumps were commissioned; but it remained on operational standby until the mid-1950s, and continued to be run one day each year, on the order of the Borough Engineer, until at least 1968.

Diagram of how the beam engine works at the Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

Diagram of how the beam engine works at the Tees Cottage Pumping Station.

Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

The view when you enter from the entrance to the pump house.

beam engine house is built in the great architectural style of the Victorian industrial revolution era a cathedral to steam power! Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

The beam engine house is built in the great architectural style of the Victorian industrial revolution era - a 'cathedral' to steam power!

great fly wheel and spinning governor to control the rotation speed of the beam engine Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

The great fly wheel and spinning governor to control the rotation speed.

Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

A lot of 'heavy duty' cranks and shafts to be seen - difficult to photograph at times because of their sheer size and huge connecting rods!

Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

Tees Cottgae Pumping Station Your first view of the beam engine!

Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

pumping cylinders of the beam engine Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

The pumping cylinders of the beam engine.

Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

The view of the River Tees from the pump house.

great beam of the beam engine of the Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

The great beam of the beam engine on the top floor of the pump house.

Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

Views looking down the connecting rods from the great beam.

Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

beam counter, every cycle counted since the beam engine was first working of the Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

The beam counter, every cycle counted since the beam engine was first working.

The Lancashire boilers

Lancashire boiler works on the principle of the heat exchanger.

The heat is a transfer from exhaust gases to the water through convection.

It is a natural circulation boiler that uses natural current to flow the water inside the boiler.

It is basically a shell and tube type heat exchanger in which the exhaust gases flow through the tubes and the water flows through the shell.

It has twin fireboxes, as you can see in the picture below and a skilled fireman balances the heat output of them, though one can be operated without firing the other.

Lancashire boilers of the Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

The Lancashire Boilers

The twin fireboxes of one of the two Lancashire boilers that power the Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

The twin fireboxes of one of the two Lancashire boilers that power the Tees Cottage Pumping Station.

The Lancashire boiler of 1902 No. 102 of the Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

The Lancashire boiler of 1902 No. 102

The Lancashire boiler of 1902 No. 101 of the Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

The Lancashire boiler of 1902 No. 101

Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

A view of both Lancashire boilers of the Tees Cottage Pumping Station.

The three remaining ponds are all visible in this view from the pump house of the Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

The three remaining ponds are all visible in this view from the pump house of the Tees Cottage Pumping Station.

Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

Some small steam traction engines, adding more interest on the Open Day of the Tees Cottage Pumping Station.

Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

Some classic British motor bikes, adding further interest on an Open Day of the Tees Cottage Pumping Station.

Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

The Gas Engine of Tees Cottage Pumping Station.

The 1914 gas engine is by Richard Hornsby & Sons of Grantham, with pumps by Hawthorn, Davey & Co. of Leeds, and all housed in a building of 1853 which previously accommodated an earlier steam engine (picture below). It presently runs on mains gas, but originally used producer gas from an adjacent plant on site. The producer plant is still in situ and open to the public; however it suffered at least two explosions over the years, evidence of which is still clearly visible with a few cracks in the iron piping, and so is no longer operational.

The brick building housing the gas engine of the Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

The brick building housing the gas engine of the Tees Cottage Pumping Station.

Catalogue picture of a Hornsby-Stockport Double Cylinder Gas Engine used at the Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

The catalogue picture of a Hornsby-Stockport Double Cylinder Gas Engine used in the past by the Tees Cottage Pumping Station.

Contemporary photographs of the Hornsby-Stockport Double Cylinder Gas Engine and still working at the Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

Contemporary photographs of the Hornsby-Stockport Double Cylinder Gas Engine and still working at the Tees Cottage Pumping Station using natural gas.

Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

Part of the suction gas plant once used at the Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

Part of the suction gas plant - suction gas is a mixture water gas (hydrogen + carbon monoxide) and producer gas (carbon monoxide and nitrogen).

How they are produced at the Tees Cottage Pumping Station is described below and both are hazardous processes, with two notable explosion that has left there marked as a cracks in the iron system!

How the suction gas plant produced water gas and producer gas at the Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

Catalogue picture of a typical Hornsby-Stockport suction gas producer and gas engine Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

Catalogue picture of a typical Hornsby-Stockport suction gas producer and gas engine.

Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

Part of the connecting machinery to the water pumps.

How the gas engine worked at the Tees Cottgae Pumping Station

How the gas engine of Tees Cottage Pumping Station worked.

North East Index

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