Stretham Old Engine is a steam-powered engine just south of

Stretham Stretham Locally, the is a glottal stop: or even is a village and civil parish south-south-west of Ely in Cambridgeshire, England, about by road from London. Its main attraction is Stretham Old Engine, a steam-powered pump used to drain ...

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and North ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, that was used to pump water from flood-affected areas of

The Fens The Fens, also known as the , in eastern England are a naturally marshy region supporting a rich ecology and numerous species. Most of the fens were drained centuries ago, resulting in a flat, dry, low-lying agricultural region supported by a ...

back into the

River Great Ouse The River Great Ouse () is a river in England, the longest of several British rivers called "Ouse". From Syresham in Northamptonshire, the Great Ouse flows through Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk to drain into the Wa ...

. It is one of only three surviving drainage engines in East Anglia, and is a Grade II* listed building.

History

During the 17th century, large areas of fenland in

East Anglia East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...

were reclaimed via extensive draining schemes. Despite this, crops and livestock were frequently swept away by widescale flooding as the land sank because of the drainage. As a partial solution,

windpump A windpump is a type of windmill which is used for pumping water. Windpumps were used to pump water since at least the 9th century in what is now Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. The use of wind pumps became widespread across the Muslim world an ...

s were used to pump water away from flood-affected areas, but relied on the weather and lacked the power required to lift large quantities of water.

Wicken Fen Wicken Fen is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest west of Wicken in Cambridgeshire. It is also a National Nature Reserve, and a Nature Conservation Review site. It is protected by international designations as a Ramsar wetland si ...

nature reserve has a preserved and restored windpump, used to manage the water table in the Fen. The advent of

steam power 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 trans ...

in the late 18th century offered a new solution, and these new engines began to spring up around The Fens.

Steam engine

Scoop-Wheel-at-Streatham-old-engine-by-Chris-Allen

The steam engine on the Old West River (Great Ouse) just south of Stretham was built by the

Butterley Company The Butterley Company was an English manufacturing firm founded as Benjamin Outram and Company in 1790. Its subsidiaries existed until 2009. Origins This area of Derbyshire had been known for its outcrops of iron ore which had been exploited ...

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...

in 1831, at a cost of £4950. It replaced four nearby windmills and its scoop wheel was used successfully for over a century to lift water from flood channels back into the river. Powered by

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

that was brought by barge, it consumed a ton of fuel every four hours. The rotative

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 ...

is of the double-acting type with a beam of and a flywheel in diameter. The

scoop wheel Rim driven Scoop wheel of the Stretham Old Engine, Cambridgeshire A scoop wheel or scoopwheel is a pump, usually used for land drainage. A scoop wheel pump is similar in construction to a water wheel, but works in the opposite manner: a wate ...

it drives has been successively enlarged as the level of the fens has shrunk: the first wheel was , increased to in 1850 and to in 1896 and lifted 120-150 tons of water per minute. During use, the engine needed constant supervision, with the stoker and superintendent on 24-hour call. One superintendent even installed a

telescope A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally meaning only an optical instrument using lenses, curved mirrors, or a combination of both to observe ...

in his window so he could supervise the workmen without the need to get his feet wet.

Replacement

In 1924, the installation of a Mirrlees diesel engine saw the steam engine relegated to 'standby', and the last serious use was during the floods of 1939 and 1940.

Prickwillow Museum Prickwillow Museum, formerly known as the Prickwillow Drainage Engine Museum, tells the story of the changing face of the Fens and its network of drainage systems and pumping stations. The museum is housed in the old pumping station in Prickwillo ...

contains a nearly identical Mirrlees diesel engine that has been preserved and restored to working order. The pumping station was later replaced with five smaller, more efficient, electrical pumps that drain into the

River Cam The River Cam () is the main river flowing through Cambridge in eastern England. After leaving Cambridge, it flows north and east before joining the River Great Ouse to the south of Ely, at Pope's Corner. The total distance from Cambridge to ...

and are still in use.

Public opening

The engine is open to the public on Sunday afternoons and Bank Holidays from the beginning of April to the end of October between 1.00pm and 5.00pm.

Picture gallery

References

* ''The Steam Pumping Station at Stretham, Cambridgeshire'' by EJA Kenny and R L Hills, ''Transactions of the Newcomen Society'', 1963-4 Vol 236. *

External links

{{Commons category, Stretham Old Engine
Stretham Old Engine official website
Buildings and structures in Cambridgeshire Infrastructure completed in 1831 Grade II* listed buildings in Cambridgeshire Tourist attractions in Cambridgeshire Preserved beam engines Museums in Cambridgeshire Steam museums in England Old Engine