Pump
Category
Historic Services / Water & sewage
Date
Unknown
Materials
cast iron
Collection
Cragside, Northumberland (Accredited Museum)
NT 1232468
Summary
A historic water system comprising of a cast iron head shot wheel producing 60lbs/in2. Warton Water Wheel - is positioned 100 metres or so up stream of the Power House. It is a riveted, wrought iron, high back shot waterwheel, and the wheel has 156 blades and turns approx 6 revolutions per minute (although the supply of water to the wheel governs the speed of the wheel). At Warton, spring water piped from the hillside entered the pump house into a wooden header tank mounted on the wall. The pumps delivered water to the farm located on a hill 21 metres (70feet) high and 915 metre (3,000feet) from the pump house. Water from the Cragside Mine Water system is fed into a holding tank in the woods above the Power House to drive the wheel and it now serves an interpretation piece in its present position, but no longer pumps water. The Warton water wheel had fallen into disrepair and was no longer in use on the farm and was removed from its historic site in 1987 to be restored by the British Engineerium at Hove in Sussex to be restored. It was reinstalled at Cragside in 1988 as a working exhibit and centre piece for the Visitor Centre courtyard. The Waterwheel was moved from the Visitor centre courtyard to the Debdon burn setting at Burnfoot in 1997 It now stands a working model of an Armstrong waterwheel with no historic context.