Draining the Levels

by Christine (secretary at Westonzoyland Pumping Station).

Westonzoyland is one of those places that makes most people say "where?" when you mention it to them. With that handicap already
in place, they will shake their heads again when you tell them that there is a steam and land-drainage museum located there.
"Never 'eard of it", they say. They can relate to the word "steam" but not quite so much to land drainage......or "land
management" as we are supposed to call it these days. Personally I can't see anything wrong with drainage, but there you are.
Westonzoyland lies some four miles south-east-ish of the Somerset town of Bridgwater. The surrounding land is flat, typical Somerset levels, huge open fields, miles of rhynes and lots of willow-trees. It was here in 1830 that the first steam-powered water-pumping station was built. It still stands today, a brick-built, Grade 2* listed building, almost 180 years on; and inside the main engine house is the museum's prime exhibit, an 1861 Easton and Amos drainage pump.

This machine replaced the earlier and less efficient scoop-wheel. Not much is known about the earlier machine and there is virtually nothing in the engine-house today that suggests it was ever there.
The Easton and Amos machine is a vertical condensing twin-cylinder engine, driving a centrifugal pump, a revolutionary design in several ways. The pump's principles had been known for a long time but John George Appold was the first person to apply them in a commercial environment, demonstrating it at the Great Exhibition of 1851. The pump is particularly useful for land drainage purposes, since it can lift a large body of water over short distances; around 100 tons per minute, over 6 feet (or just under 2 metres, for the modern mind).

In essence, the floodwater would have entered the engine-house by way of a rhyne; the centrifugal pump lifted the water upwards into a special well and passed it on through a large portal leading to the River Parrett, which runs close beside the pump-house. Today the portal is closed off because the river-bank has been raised; but it can still be seen clearly if viewed from the visitors' platform....and even better if one descends the 10-feet long ladder into the pit, although this is not advised on a steaming day! Although the Easton and Amos can no longer pump water out to the river, it can still be operated by steam and fully demonstrate the centrifugal pump. In recent months, the lower rhyne actually did collect a lot of floodwater and the centrifugal pump clearly showed it had not lost its capability of raising water, when members ran it. It easily drew water up to the old portal level and splashed it around; although of course it had nowhere to go and had to fall back again into the rhyne.

Over the years, the steam power on-site has been supplied by various boilers. It is believed that a Cornish boiler was the first source; followed by a 1914 Lancashire, until the station closed in the 1950's. The Lancashire is now out of commission but still in situ, just off the main engine-house. After the station was taken over by the Engine Trust, a 1957 Coltman boiler was acquired and set up; originally from West Coker (Somerset) Rope and Twine Works. It ran the Easton and Amos machine, Wills engine and a variety of other smaller exhibits until 2004 when it succumbed to metal wasting and weak firebars and was subsequently taken off-duty. The following two years proved hectic for the museum since money had to be raised to retube the Marshall boiler. The failed Coltman eventually returned to the old Rope and Twine Works site.
The 1938 Marshall portable model once worked for Thames Water; then spent some years at Kew Bridge before coming to Westonzoyland. Having sat for years in the yard with covers on and chimney folded down, its time finally came in 2004 when re-tubing and a general tidy-up started. With donations from members, visitors and the PRISM Fund, the boiler's 77 tubes were replaced with new and the whole thing fired up in 2005 for the tourist season.
The boiler provides a lot more power than the previous Coltman and, with most exhibits needing little more than 50lb psi, the Marshall can rightly be said to be the one person running the entire site.