Former Allermoor Pumping Station and Allermoor Cottage

Details

BURROWBRIDGE

1770/0/10001 Allermoor Pumping Station and attached 16-AUG-04 cottage

II Former pumping station and attached cottage. Erected in 1869 with C20 additions. MATERIALS: Built of red brick with dressings of buff-coloured brick, all in Flemish bond, with gable roofs of double-Roman tiles. There is a central ridge stack to cottage. PLAN: L-shaped with attached cottage, the former Attendant's dwelling, to right. EXTERIOR: The PUMPING STATION is a single storey building with later C20 addition to left (south west). It has a central entrance on left side elevation, a large, arched opening to front (south east), and one to the north east elevation which is blocked. Original sash windows with glazing bars to rear and side elevations, and French doors to front. The COTTAGE is of two storeys. It has a symmetrical two bay front (south east) to the roadside with sash windows. The single storey addition to the rear, added in the later C20 is not of interest. INTERIOR: Two room plan with single storey block to left side that served as the former office. Main room houses a 1924 Lancashire boiler, cased in brick. Room to the rear of the building contains a vertical, twin cylinder steam engine and pump built by Easton, Amos and Anderson of Southwark in 1869. The attached cottage has a two room plan entered from the north east into hallway with staircase to first floor. It retains some late-C19 joinery, including doors and architrave; a small fireplace with camber-headed brick lintel; and the historic roof structure is understood to be intact. HISTORY: The introduction of steam power to the Somerset Levels in the 1830s and the formation of Drainage Boards following the 1861 Land Drainage Act, led to significant improvements in land drainage. The pumping station at Allermoor was built in 1869 and although sited some distance from the moor it drained, the engine utilised, and raised water into, an old channel of the River Cary. It continued to operate until 1955. SOURCES: Iain Miles, Bogs and Inundations (1999)Somerset Industrial Archaeological Society, Survey Number 7

REASON FOR DESCISION: Allermoor pumping station and its attached cottage are designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * It is one of only two examples, out of a total of eight pumping stations on the Somerset Levels, which retains its historic plant * Despite conversion to a dwelling, it is a rare example of the land drainage technology that was once a common feature of this area * Both buildings have strong group value as a complex of historically inter-related late-C19 structures

ST3578430556

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

492010

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Miles, I, Bogs and inundations..., ()

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