HIAS
Projects
Please note: The Rescue and Restoration Section has
been suspended so that no projects are currently
being undertaken by HIAS.
Past Projects:
The following gives a brief outline of projects that HIAS has
been involved in over the years. Some members continue to be involved in various mills projects
through the Hampshire Mills
Group:-
Timsbury -
Water wheel driven water pump
Wheel
- Complete
except for touching up paintwork
Weir
-
Complete except for capping
Bypass sluice - Made but not installed yet due to high water
levels
Wheel sluice - Complete
Pump
- Reconditioning
complete
Pipework - Some still to be
installed
Wherwell
Mill -Turbine installation jammed and partially
dismantled
Weed Rack - Installed
Turbine drive to generators - still to be overhauled
Turbine - requires
dismantling and rotor made to rotate
Chilland
Mill -Turbine (electricity generation)
Needs inspecting when water flows permit
Consultancy work
Durley Mill
- Water wheel requires reconditioning
Water wheel - Sole plates require replacement
Bishopstoke
Mill - Turbines - Display or Electricity Generation
Consultancy work
Hockley
Mill - Cracked pit wheel
Pit wheel
- Estimate obtained for stitching - arrangements
to fund repairs under consultation.
Beaulieu
Mill - Repair work after fire
Moved mill stones to enable work on hurst frame to proceed
Ongoing
industrial archaeology projects in the area:
Some
members are involved in other IA projects under
the auspices of other organisations:-
Southampton Tram Project (formerly TRAM 57)
In 1975 the body of Southampton tram
No. 57 was discovered near Romsey. The City Museums decided to acquire it and,
in 1977, a support group was set up to restore it. Thus the TRAM 57 Project was
born. Two other trams, Nos 11 built in Portswood in 1923 and 38 built in 1903,
were located and brought to Southampton in 1979
for restoration in the Group's workshop in Millbrook. Tram 57 was put in store
and later moved to the Hampshire County Council Museum reserve collection site in 2000.
The Millbrook workshop closed in 2003 and trams 11 and 38, plus a Lisbon tram which had been purchased for spares, were
placed in storage until the latter half of 2011 when a new workshop was built in
Southampton's Eastern Docks as part of the
planned "Aeronautica" heritage project. The City Council transferred the ownership
of trams 11 and 38 to the Solent Sky museum in 2011
and, as the tram group now has no responsibility
for Car 57, it was decided in May 2013 to rename
the group to Southampton Tram Project. Visits are by prior arrangement only:
please contact Nigel Smith, Project Co-ordinator: 3 Stag Gates, Blackfield,
Southampton, SO45 1SR; phone: 023 8089 4729; email: lnigel.smith@btinternet.com
Tram 11
Tram 38
The Crux Easton Wind Engine
Project
The opening ceremony of the restored Crux
Easton Wind Engine was done by Sir George Young on September
25, 2002.
A trust has been formed to continue to run an preserve the wind engine. More
details can be found
here.
The joint HIAS / Hampshire Mills Group
"Heavy Gang" worked in conjunction with the British Engineerium to
dismantle an 1892 example of a John Wallis Titt built Wind Engine of the geared type at Crux
Easton. This was erected on what was then Lord Caernavron's land to pump water
from a 400 ft well. It could also be clutched in to grind grain or drive a
circular saw.
Unused since the 1920's it survived the metal
collections of the second world war and the great gales in the late 1980's, but
was showing its age before the CRUX Easton Wind Engine Conservation Trust
obtained grants from the National Lottery, Hampshire County Council and
Basingstoke & Deane District Council for its restoration.
Over a week in September, the structure was
carefully stripped into its component parts by professionals and
amateurs working close together. The Wind Engine was then taken to Hove for restoration.
When this had taken place it was returned to its
home at Crux Easton and carefully reassembled by the same team of enthusiasts
in full working order for the first time for over 70 years.
There have been a number of interesting
"Finds" at the site. In particular, wine bottles bearing the seal of
"E.J.Lisle Esq 1723" (He died in 1722). [Or is it because of
the calendar change in 1752 the months of January, February & March
(up to 25th) in the years 1582-1752 have a double year ? So is the date Julian
or Gregorian?
Examples of other wind engines
Wind Engine in Southampton
"A
windmill to supply fresh water at the Marchwood Base in Southampton was constructed at the
depot. The machine, 16 feet in diameter and supported on a 70 foot high square
steel trellis, was purchased from John Wallis Titt's Iron Works in
Warminster in 1873 for the sum of �155. It was in operation by the following
year. For the next four years the windmill was in use continuously but it
appears to have been the cause of grievance on more than one occasion.
In a letter
dated 9th November 1898, Captain Cox complained
to the Naval Officer at Portsmouth that for some
considerable time the water has not accumulated in the tank to the slightest
degree. Only three months later Captain Cox reported, It has been found
almost impossible and extremely dangerous to attempt to stop the windmill from
working during a storm or in a gale of wind." (From: Marchwood Yacht
Club--History)
Hinton Charterhouse Wind Engine
"By
the end of the 19th century there was a need for a better water supply in
the village and Mr. E. T.D.Foxcroft had a ram installed near Norton Barn
to pump up water from a very good spring, The ram had been built by John
Wallis Titt of Warminster and exhibited at the Bath and West show at
Taunton in 1895. It was fetched from Taunton by two men who
charged 52/- to fetch it with a wagon and horses. The journey took two
days each way. "
MOW COP Wind Engine
Mow Cop
could once boast its own wind operated water-pumping system, the idea being to
pump water up to supply the local area and parts of Staffordshire. The
windmill with the waterworks were owned by Kidsgrove Urban District Council who
appointed an attendant to live by the pump, to ensure it ran and to do the
basic maintenance. On windy days however he would have to climb up the windmill
and wedge the wheel, as it would have been damaged, or dislocated.
I was led
to believe that the mechanics of the windmill were built in Germany, and a local man, a
carpenter and undertaker Mr C.H Hancock, made the fins. However since a Mr
Gareth Hughes has pointed out that an identical windmill was built at Bury St
Edmunds in 1900 and was copyrighted by a John Willis Titt, of Warminster.
Extract from http://www.hfstephens-museum.org.uk/the-colonels-topics/wind-and-water.html
"Another British manufacturer was John Wallis
Titt of Warminster, who is known to have supplied windpumps to the Midland, Great Western and London &
South Western Railways. L&SWR locations included Amesbury Junction, and a
couple of stations on the Basingstoke and Alton Light Railway, including Cliddesden (the windpump
can be seen briefly in the Will Hay film, 'O, Mr Porter'). The Basingstoke
& Alton examples seem to have been used to supply water to the stations and
railway cottages, rather than for locomotive purposes." (From Tom Burnham:
Summer 2001 edition of The Tenterden Terrier).
The �olienne Boll�e in
Britain
The introduction of a French wind-engine to rural Sussex was due to the foundation of a
monastery. Based in Chartres, on the northern edge of the
Beauce, the Carthusian Order customarily employed French architects to build
even its overseas Charterhouses. Consequently, French-made wind engines were
installed not only in Britain but also in Spain. Auguste Boll�e's 1888 catalogue
confirms that a large No. 3 �olienne had been sent to Britain in 1879, presumably when
construction work began on the new Charterhouse, and that a small No. 1 had
followed in 1881. The former was felled by a gale in the 1960s, the remnants
being broken up c. 1984; the latter, however, still stands in its enclosure.
Bounded by a wrought-iron fence, the comparatively low 3� unit column still
has its spiral stairs, balusters and hand rail. The stairs give
access to the platform that, though its floor plates are now badly wasted,
retains the original hand rail and serpentine wrought-iron balusters complete
with finials. The turbine and associated control gear are now in relic
condition, but sufficient remains to guide restoration.
Power was once transmitted by shafts and bevel gears from
the turbine head down through the supporting column, then out horizontally to
an intermediate bearing and thence through the wall of the tiny circular pump
house. Made Normandy-style of bricks laid radially, lined with limed mortar and
roofed conically with graduated slates laid on wooden joists, the pump house is
now in poor condition owing partly to the ravages of time and partly to the
malign influence of a large ash tree. However, the pump house has protected the
three-throw pump and its brick-lined sump well enough for the machinery to
survive in surprisingly good condition.
HIAS is
a registered charity, No. 276898.
|