Broadlaw Pumps

Well it's been one of those days - I'm in the "huffy bed" and had to get out. I have passed this relic thousands of times and never actually had the chance to see it properly.
Broadlaw Pumps (it's name on a nearby power line) is situated on a road between Ponteland and Morpeth, Northumberland. I think it may be an underground pump with an above ground storage tank which supplies nearby Broadlaw farm.
The storage tank is my subject in this thread. I think it may be an old converted Lancashire boiler - though I'm probably wrong! I'm sure someone will help!
There's not much else to say really so I'll get on with the pics.

Power line signeage.



What greets you when you climb the fence.



Other end of tank/boiler. Note the crumbling and repaired brickwork.



Evidence of steam valvegear?



Thank you for looking.

Pumping Station.

Looks like an old Lancashire boiler with blanked off furnace tubes, they used to be used a lot as colliery air receivers as well.

Engineer said:

Looks like an old Lancashire boiler with blanked off furnace tubes, they used to be used a lot as colliery air receivers as well.

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Def agree there mate.I used to work for a company called Fred Watkins Engineering Ltd..........they were very famous in their day for supplying new and secondhand steam boilers and equiptment and when I worked there in 1979 ish there were loads like this that had been dumped from their hire fleet because they were by then well old...They would often be stripped out of the boiler tubes and flue assembly and converted as this one has been into a storage tank..They did the job well too because they were always way thicker than an ordinary storage tank would have been............

Also.......The little oval hole below the blanked off plates is the access to the actual 'boiler' part of the Lancashire Boiler. In days gone by a boilermans assistant (some poor little lad) would be squeezed in through this hole every couple of months to scrape off and shovel out any limescale that had built up inside (just lik it does in yer kettle)......Seeing as the works that the boiler would have been in didn't wanna lose to much down time this was obviously done as quickly as possible...the boiler would be allowed to go out , then it would be drained and as soon as the temperature of the boiler had dropped just enough the lad would be sent in to get to work.....Old blokes that were still at Watkins delighted in showing me burn scars on their arms , legs and backs from where they had had to do just that back in the 'good old days'.................

Pumping Station.

They were everywhere when I was a kid, two local asylums had several, plus three mothballed at Brackla ROF.
We used to crawl through the flues at Brackla evenually arriving at the chimney base, must have been about 1960ish.

Engineer said:

We used to crawl through the flues at Brackla evenually arriving at the chimney base, must have been about 1960ish.

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Hehheh!!........ and as black as a bucket of coal too I'll bet.........
What did yer Ma have to say about it the state of yer clothes when you got home ????????????

Fascinating stuff! I've googled Lancashire boiler and I've managed to work out that the flue gasses were effectively re-circulated to squeeze out all the heat before it was vented?
The area where this particular one is located seems to have little or no water supply. Indeed, it is very near to Tranwell airfield (RAF Morpeth) which has a huge water tower nearby.

Hey nice one mate! Glad you finally took some photos of this! Is this the one we passed after we had been to the St. Mary's sewage works?? I think I recognise it. Good man for getting out.

Lithium said:

Hey nice one mate! Glad you finally took some photos of this! Is this the one we passed after we had been to the St. Mary's sewage works?? I think I recognise it. Good man for getting out.

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Aye mate it's the very one. It's massive. The pics just don't show the scale! I'd hate to see one of these things go bang.

Pumphose.

smiffy said:

Hehheh!!........ and as black as a bucket of coal too I'll bet.........
What did yer Ma have to say about it the state of yer clothes when you got home ????????????

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I think they must have cleand everything up before they mothballed it, not much soot about.

Ma just uttered a few words of harsh and dire warnings, not really a problem in those days as kid's were expected to get dirty, cut, abraded and come into contact with the odd motor vehicle, fall off swings etc- etc.

NO PC safety ********, magic!

Pumphouse.

Sausage said:

Fascinating stuff! I've googled Lancashire boiler and I've managed to work out that the flue gasses were effectively re-circulated to squeeze out all the heat before it was vented?

Click to expand...

There was also an economizer in the flue to preheat the cold make up feed water.

Engineer said:

.......... in those days as kid's were expected to get dirty, cut, abraded and come into contact with the odd motor vehicle, fall off swings etc- etc.

NO PC safety ********, magic!

Click to expand...

Yer right there mate.........growing up in these here parts you weren't even considered to be on the scale unless you could
A: ride a motorbike
B: Had an old motorbike (or at least access to yer big brothers)
c: could drive an old car around the woods (or had access.... etc.)
D: had broken at least one arm or leg falling out of a tree / off a motorbike / falling down a dis-used quarry etc
E: had been down at least one of the old mines in the area with no more than the aid of a candle in a jamjar and without yer big brother
F: knew how to build an effective fire and how to roast 'taters and apples in it
G: had dammed up at least one good size stream
H: had built and could steer down the steepest hill in the neighbourhood a crap pram wheeled carty even if you did achieve one of 'D:' in doing so...............

Add yer own to the list ! heheheheheh!

smiffy said:

Yer right there mate.........growing up in these here parts you weren't even considered to be on the scale unless you could
A: ride a motorbike
B: Had an old motorbike (or at least access to yer big brothers)
c: could drive an old car around the woods (or had access.... etc.)
D: had broken at least one arm or leg falling out of a tree / off a motorbike / falling down a dis-used quarry etc
E: had been down at least one of the old mines in the area with no more than the aid of a candle in a jamjar and without yer big brother
F: knew how to build an effective fire and how to roast 'taters and apples in it
G: had dammed up at least one good size stream
H: had built and could steer down the steepest hill in the neighbourhood a crap pram wheeled carty even if you did achieve one of 'D:' in doing so...............

Add yer own to the list ! heheheheheh!

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Haha thats cool, it teks me back! I see you call it a "carty" as well. I thought that was just a Northumberland word! We had wheel chair wheels courtesy of our old friend who worked for Remploy. Inflatable carty wheels were so posh in 1976. Done all that mate except for breaking a limb. Theres still time yet I guess though

Pumphouse

Missed out on the motor bikes until I started work, I was born in 1948 so a lot more fun things about.

Wander around all day with airgun, shoot anything that moved, shoot anything that did'nt until it did.

Shoot at mates etc.

Poach fish, rabbits etc, not uncommon for a gamekeeper to fire his shotgun at you from long range.

Lots of derelict bits about from the war.

the list is endless.

Sausage said:

Fascinating stuff! I've googled Lancashire boiler and I've managed to work out that the flue gasses were effectively re-circulated to squeeze out all the heat before it was vented?

Click to expand...

Which is exactly what modern self-condensing combi-boilers installed in new houses do.

God bless recycled 'modern' technology

Engineer said:

.....................
Wander around all day with airgun, shoot anything that moved, shoot anything that did'nt until it did.

Shoot at mates etc.

Poach fish, rabbits etc, not uncommon for a gamekeeper to fire his shotgun at you from long range.

Lots of derelict bits about from the war.

the list is endless.

Click to expand...

hahahah !! I forgot all about airgun 'patrols' or if you weren't lucky enuf to have an airgun maybe a Milbro catapult ...I was lucky....I had a Webley Ranger 177 to start with then a underlever 22 bloody dangerous that bugger was especially to my mates heheheheh! ....I think it was a BSA ?? ...
Christ-a-mighty the woods 'round here was just like Vietnam..............

Pumphouse.

Ahh, the Milbro catapult, many comical moments when someones projectile hit their thumb at high speed,lol.

That boiler's great, sausage. Btw, I've got to ask...what's a 'huffy bed'...does it mean someone's got a strop on with you or are you just teed off?

smiffy said:

... knew how to build an effective fire and how to roast 'taters and apples in it...
!

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Haha, that takes me back. Me and my sisters would nick tatties out of our dad's veggie plot and build a fire somewhere in the fields and roast them. Black and burnt on the outside and white and fluffy on the inside.

Plus...

Swinging across the river on a knotted rope
Walking across a pipe running parallel to the bridge
Hand over hand underneath a metal bridge
Running across the weir (I was always falling in and going home soaked)
Fishing with home-made rods
Shooting arrows with home-made bows
Building underground camps with old carpet for a roof
All of us local kids having huge battles using hay bales for forts
Apple scrumping
Building tree houses

Yup, I was a tomboy!

Engineer said:

Ahh, the Milbro catapult, many comical moments when someones projectile hit their thumb at high speed,lol.

Click to expand...

I smashed my two front teeth out with a Milbro catapult when I let go with the wrong hand. I was never very good at stuff like that.

I still have my BSA Meteor from when I was 4 years old! That was 38 years ago. All the insides are completely rebuilt and it's a great starter gun.

FoxyLady - a huffy bed is when you get so peed off with the other half that you end up sleeping in the spare (huffy) bed. Not at that stage but very close!! She needs to grovel tonight......

Never broke a bone apart from my nose. Did set fire to a village but thats it.

Pumphouse.

Started off with a "Gat" pistol, on to Model 15 Diana then Webley Ranger and finally BSA Airsporter.

Everyone had a knife of some sort but nobody got stabbed!

Almost forgot, no ASBO's, thick ear off the local bobby, (and anyone else who felt you needed one).