The Shore Road Pumping Station is a

pumping station Pumping stations, also called pumphouses in situations such as well drilling, 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 infrastru ...

Birkenhead Birkenhead (; cy, Penbedw) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England; historically, it was part of Cheshire until 1974. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the south bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liver ...

, on the

Wirral Peninsula Wirral (; ), known locally as The Wirral, is a peninsula in North West England. The roughly rectangular peninsula is about long and wide and is bounded by the River Dee to the west (forming the boundary with Wales), the River Mersey to t ...

, England. It was designed by engineers

James Brunlees Sir James Brunlees FRSE MICE (1816 – 1892) was a Scottish civil engineer. He was President of the Institution of Civil Engineers for 1882-3. He was born in Kelso in the Scottish Borders in 1816. Early life Brunlees was the son of John Brun ...

and

Charles Douglas Fox Sir Charles Douglas Fox (14 May 1840 – 13 November 1921) was an English civil engineer. Early life Douglas was born in Smethwick, Staffordshire, the oldest son of Sir Charles Fox and had two brothers and a sister. Sir Charles was a civil ...

and built in the 1880s as part of the

Mersey Railway The Mersey Railway was the first part of the passenger railway connecting the communities of Liverpool, Birkenhead, and now the rest of the Wirral Peninsula in England, which lie on opposite banks of the River Mersey, via the Mersey Railway Tun ...

. The building originally housed two steam powered

beam engine A beam engine is a type of steam engine where a pivoted overhead beam is used to apply the force from a vertical piston to a vertical connecting rod. This configuration, with the engine directly driving a pump, was first used by Thomas Newco ...

pumps which removed water from the railway tunnel under the

River Mersey The River Mersey () is in North West England. Its name derives from Old English and means "boundary river", possibly referring to its having been a border between the ancient kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria. For centuries it has formed part ...

. These had ceased working by 1959 when they were replaced by electric pumps. One of the engines, named the 'Giant Grasshopper', remains in situ and was restored to working condition. The pumping station is a three-storeyed brick construction in the

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

architectural style, with a

Welsh slate The existence of a slate industry in Wales is attested since the Roman period, when slate was used to roof the fort at Segontium, now Caernarfon. The slate industry grew slowly until the early 18th century, then expanded rapidly until the l ...

roof. An external staircase, housed within a glass structure, was added to the front of the building in the late 1980s when being converted into a museum. A similar building, the Mann Island Pumping Station, also still exists across the river in

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

. Shore Road Pumping Station was granted Grade II listed status in 1992 and eventually became part of the Wirral Museum, with a period 1901 Birkenhead street scene reconstructed in the yard. In 2009, as part of its Strategic Asset Review, owners

Wirral Borough Council Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council, or simply Wirral Council, is the local authority of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral in Merseyside, England. It is a metropolitan district council, one of five in Merseyside and one of 36 in the metropolit ...

planned to sell the museum. Sometime after mid-2012 but before early 2014, the museum closed to the public.

References

External links

Rail infrastructure in England River Mersey Rail transport in Merseyside Buildings and structures in Birkenhead Museums in Merseyside Preserved beam engines Steam museums in England Water supply pumping stations Defunct museums in England Former pumping stations {{merseyside-struct-stub