Markfield Beam Engine
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The Markfield Beam Engine is a 100 horsepower Beam Pumping Engine, built in 1886 to transfer sewage from the Middlesex district of Tottenham into the London system for treatment at the Beckton works. Now almost restored to working order, the engine can be seen operating on the 2nd Sunday of every month.
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[edit] The Engine
It is a free-standing engine of the compound rotative type and is believed to be the last engine produced by Wood Bros. of Sowerby Bridge, Yorkshire. It is the only surviving eight-column engine in situ. The engine has two cylinders arranged to be double-acting and compounded.
It was built between 1886 and 1888. It was commissioned on the 12th July 1888 and saw continuous duty from that time until late in 1905, when it was relegated to standby duty for stormwater pumping.
The engine's beam drives two pumps of the single-acting plunger type. Each pump is 26" diameter and 51" stroke. At a working speed of 16rpm, these pumps could handle 4 million gallons in 24 hours over a relatively low head. The engine's flywheel is 27 feet in diameter and weighs around 17 tons.
The engine features a speed governor of the Watt Centrifugal type and its drive coupling to the cylinders is of the conventional Watt parallel motion Linkage.
The engine is finely decorated, according to the fashion of the day, with doric columns and acanthus leaves. There are also three finely ornate iron vases atop the valve chest. Its original colours, it is believed, were light and dark green with all exposed metalwork being highly polished and oiled.
[edit] Restoration
Since the engine was mothballed in February 1964, and the surrounding site was levelled, the area has seen significant decay and vandalism. It has been estimated that a complete restoration of the engine will cost an additional £25000. At the moment, the engine has been restored and painted to a moving condition. A steam generator was fitted in a new boilerhouse annexe in the early 1980's but it has since broken down.
[edit] The Surrounding Area
By the late 1950's it was decided that the site was too small to have a digested sludge system and that the treatment charges levied the London County Council meant that it was more cost-effetcive to have all effluents directed through a new low level sewer to the rebuilt Deepham Sewage Treatment Works at Edmonton. Thus pumping of sewage would no longer be required at the Markfield Works.
The works were closed, all machinery (apart from the Beam Engine) was scrapped, the site levelled - apart from the engine house buildings and the settling tanks and filter beds. The engine house was made secure and the Beam Engine mothballed.
The former sludge tanks were turned into a garden space, however due to poor security, the entire area has been extensively vandalised.
[edit] External link
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