Papplewick Pumping Station

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.

A Trust was formed in 1974 to conserve the site as a static museum, but the plans soon developed to include the refurbishment and regular steaming of the engines. One of the beam engines was operated in 1975, using the only boiler that was certified to be safe at the time. Since then, the second engine has been reconditioned, and both are steamed several times a year. New visitor facilities were built in 1991, and a major restoration of the structures was completed in 2005, following a grant of £1.6 million by the Heritage Lottery Fund. As well as the beam engines, the site houses several other engines, which are also demonstrated on steam days.

In 1807, Thomas Hawksley, who went on to pioneer public water supply systems in the United Kingdom, was born at Arnold, near Nottingham. In 1830, there were two water companies in Nottingham, and he was appointed engineer for one of them, with responsibility for the construction of a water works and pumping station at Trent Bridge. Despite opinions that it was impracticable, he built the first system where the water was always under pressure, so that consumers could draw water from it at all times of the day. In order for it to succeed, he had to design a range of fittings which would not leak and persuade plumbers to use them. In 1845, Nottingham's two water companies amalgamated to form the Nottingham Waterworks Company, and Hawksley became the consulting engineer.

The link between water supply and water-borne diseases such as cholera and typhoid was established in the 1850s, and the need to supply clean filtered water resulted in a series of projects, which steadily moved further to the north of the city. Park Works pumping station and Belle View Reservoir were in the city, and were both completed in 1850. Basford pumping station and Mapperley Reservoir were completed in 1857 and 1859, and were beyond the northern boundary of the city. Bestwood pumping station and Redhill Reservoir followed in 1871 and 1872, and Hawksley completed Papplewick Reservoir in 1880, further north still. The Waterworks Company was taken over by Nottingham Corporation at this time, and Papplewick pumping station was operational by 1884. It is situated in a region where the underlying rock is Bunter sandstone, which filters the water naturally.

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