tarboat's photos

This pumping station was built by the Isle of Axholme Drainage Board in 1910 when two tandem compound steam engines by Marshalls Sons and Company Limited of Gainsborough were installed to drive a pair of Drysdale centrifugal pumps. Steam was provided by two Cornish boilers which were also made by Marshall. The site is now partly a museum and some of the old plant is demonstrated on open days. Both boilers are worn out but this right hand boiler would be capable of restoration if this was economically practical. In fact the remaining engine will soon to be powered by a small gas-fired unit which will be easily adequate to turn the engine over without load.

I finally took a trip to Barnetby to see what is probably the best surviving set of semaphore signals remaining in Britain on a main line. Visible in this view of a Cleethorpes to Manchester Airport train arriving at the four platform Barnet by Station there are nine semaphore arms plus a shunting disc. Some of the replacement colour light signals were already apparent nearby.

A visit to Newport in Shropshire gave me an opportunity to stroll along the broad High Street of this pleasant little town. Many of the buildings flanking this street date from the 18th century or even earlier, but this building on the corner of New Street is a rather later pastiche.

Today I went walking with a friend in the hills above Hollingworth Lake near Littleborough. Lunchtime found us at a farmstead called Syke where we sat on a colliery spoil tip to eat our sandwiches and take in the view. The hill across the valley is Syke Nab and running down to the left is the flagged access road. The line running across the centre of the image, curving under the track and back off to the right is the feeder channel from the reservoir (Hollingworth Lake) to the summit level of the Rochdale Canal several miles away. The impoverished canal company sold the reservoir to the local water supply undertaking many years ago and the feeder channel is no longer used. The operation of this supply was expensive as the water had to be raised 45ft into the feeder by a beam pumping engine as the reservoir was at a lower level.

Boating down the Rochdale Canal at Miles Platting. Victoria Mill, alongside the Rochdale Cana, was built between 1869 and 1873 to the design of Bolton architect George Woodhouse. The owner was William Holland who moved his business there from Adelphi Mill in Salford. It comprises two symmetrical six-storey cotton spinning mills separated by an engine house and a chimney that rises from a stair tower. After standing empty for a while this Grade II* listed building has now been renovated mainly for office, apartments and an adult learning centre.

Thwaite Mills on the outskirts of Leeds started as a fulling mill, was later rebuilt as a seed mill, then became a flint grinding mill supplying local potteries with materials. The business later diversified into producing whiting (ground chalk) and then progressed to the manufacture of putty. The final production was in 1977 when the adjacent wier on the River Aire collapsed and made the waterwheels driving the plant unworkable. Since then the weir has been rebuilt and the mills are run as a museum by Leeds City Council. In this view is a Broadbent jaw crusher which fed chalk to the adjacent grinding mill. One of the two waterwheels can just be seen behind the crusher.

On a visit to the Burbage Moor quarries near Sheffield I happened upon this sad specimen. Just try to imagine the huge amount of work that had been undertaken in dressing this block of stone on the outside, and then channelling out the interior, only for it to split in two. So there it sits, untouched since that sad day when the trough went bad!

Carrickfergus gasworks has been preserved as a museum by a local Trust and comprises the largest surviving gasworks in Britain and Ireland. I was privileged to be given a personal tour of the premises when I visited. This is one of the three retort benches on the site.

This small intermittent kiln at Burniston in North Yorkshire has been beautifully restored by the village History Group. A plaque on the structure suggests that there has been a communal kiln on this site since before 1321.

A view from Paull towards the storage tanks of the Saltend Chemical Park . BP Chemicals Ltd established Saltend Chemicals Park in 2009. Today a range of organisations operate on the 370-acre site, sharing an established infrastructure and extensive provision of services, feedstocks and utilities In the background is the Salt End cogeneration plant which was commissioned in 2000 by Entergy an American power generator. It was later sold to Calpine Corporation, also an American power generator, in August 2001 for £562 million. In July 2005, Salt End was sold to International Power and Mitsui (70:30 share) for £500 million. As far as I can ascertain it is now owned and operated by GDF SUEZ Energy UK-Turkey. The site was built by Mitsubishi (MHI) and Raytheon. The station is run on gas using single shaft 3 x Mitsubishi 701F gas Turbines machines with Alstom 400 MWe generators. The station has a total output of 1200 MW; of that 100 MW is allocated to supply BP Chemicals. Each gas turbine has a Babcock Borsig Power (BBP) heat recovery steam generator, which all lead to one steam turbine per unit (single shaft machine means Gas turbine and Steam Turbine are on the same shaft). The waste steam at the rate of about 120 tonnes/hr is sold to BP Chemicals to use in their process. This makes Saltend one of the most efficient power stations in the UK.

The former Salvation Army Women's Hostel dating from 1911 is in Grassmarket, Edinburgh. The Art Nouveau lettering remains over the entrance but the building is now a backpackers' hostel.

1910 Letterhead for Richard Johnson, Clapham & Morris Ltd manufacturers of a wide range of metal goods at their works in Newton Heath, Manchester. In 1934 the firm relocated to Trafford Park and by the 1950s seems to have been acting as a wholesaler of household goods. The business also seems to have been connected to the ironfounders and wire manufacturer Richard Johnson and Nephew Ltd.

Ingersley Vale Mill, Bollington.

Three of the five cooling towers at the Tuzla combined heat and power station. Developed between 1964 and 1978 the plant has a generating capacity of c780MW and supplies heat for Tuzla and Lukavac along with process steam for nearby industries.

A Grade II Listed railway swing bridge, built by the North Eastern Railway. It opened on 7 May 1907, and replaced the original 1853 bridge. Railway use ceased in 1968, and it is now used as a footpath and cycleway. Lots of stuff on the replacement works here: www.forgottenrelics.co.uk/bridges/wilmington.html

There are several of these characters overlooking the main through platforms at Crewe Station. I wonder whether this is modelled on the redoubtable Sir Richard Moon who was Chairman of the London & North Western Railway Company 1861 - 1891? :-)

The sun is fast disappearing behind the mountains as the afternoon load of timber waits above Valea Scradei on the Wassertalbahn in northern Romania.

There has been a bridge at this point (close to the North Gate of the city walls) since 1541, before which there was a ferry. A hydraulically operated horizontal drawbridge was constructed in 1870 connecting Charlotte Street and Witham. In 1925 plans were submitted for a new bridge designed by the City Engineer T. Thomas which included a straightened approach road approximately 30 yards north of the 1870 bridge. The bridge was contracted in 1927 for £86,100 to the Widnes Foundry (1925) Ltd, who constructed it as a Scherzer rolling lift bridge between 1928 and 1931. It was Grade II listed in 1994.