'The Village'

No, not Portmerion, no Prisoner No 6 here, however after several shaky starts and changes of ownership the Village at Fleggburgh near Gt. Yarmouth folded and the entire contents were sold off - I was tempted to move these pictures to 'Damp Eye Corner' but as the engines still exist this was not really appropriate so I have left alone other than to add this information - you cannot see the Village any longer !

The site had a number of very interesting items of machinery and for the dedicated follower of stationary steam the most interesting exhibits were:

A Hunter and English (Bow) single cylinder Vertical (ex Poplar Gas Works) which has come to rest here after a number of years travelling around steam rallies on a trailer under the ownership of Arthur Riseborough (see the description of the sister engine at Forncett for details). 

Update  - This has apparently been relocated to 'The Power of the Past' at or near Wantisden in Suffolk

There were three other significant stationary steam engines, all originally used locally for marsh drainage and initially saved and restored by Bob Morse of Repps.

This is an incomplete overtype semi portable built by Holmes of Prospect Place, Norwich, driving an Appold style vertical axial turbine pump - it is the only known surviving Holmes engine, and originally worked at Waxham.

Update - Bob re purchased this engine at the sale for his private museum a few miles from 'The Village'

The other two large engines were an Easton Amos and Sons of 1866 and an Easton Amos and Anderson of 1870 condensing twin cylinder crank overhead engines driving vertical axis Appold drainage pumps through wooden cogged crown and bevel wheels. The piston rods are guided by grasshopper motion and the engines appear to have operated condensing but ungoverned. Running at 50 - 60 RPM these are reputed to have shifted about 50 tons of water per minute. The older engine was originally located at East Somerton and the younger at Haddiscoe, this last was working as recently as the 1953 floods.

A similar engine can be seen running under steam at the Westonzoyland Westonzoyland Pumping Station near Bridgewater in Somerset.

This shows the two engines as first re erected at Fleggburgh, the older to the left.

This shows the later Eastons Amos & Anderson engine in more detail

The Easton & Amos engine from the rear showing one grasshopper parallel motion beam with left to right cylinder, condenser and boiler feed water pump.

Rare to have survived and even rarer to see are these Appold type pump impellers and casings once used with the drainage engines, sadly, while there was ample cover in the pumphouse they were deteriorating as they had been left outside, unprotected and un painted. 

Update - these engines were purchased by Preston Steam Services near Canterbury and the two crank overhead engines are on display there, can now be steamed and are steamed at their open steaming events. 

Sadly, Norfolk County Council, Norfolk Mills, Norfolk Museums Service or The Broads Authority could be persuaded that this last chance to preserve the all but lost heritage of Broadland steam drainage pumping machinery was worth taking on board and bidding for - unlike Somerset where a number of examples of the Somerset Levels steam drainage equipment have been preserved for posterity.

Ironically, I could have provided a home here at the Old Engine House for these magnificent engines but living in the Broadland Conservation Area would have stood absolutely no chance of success in a planning application to site or house them - it also begs the question, with the millions ploughed into the Broads Authority, just what part of our heritage are they actually preserving ? The 'Land of the Rivers' project seems to have absorbed far more EU cash to date than would have been needed to safeguard these relics but strangely, whilst much has been absorbed by, presumably, consultants doing feasibility studies, there are no more Norfolk windmills with their sails turning than before and many looking far worse as there does not appear to be any planned maintenance program covering them. Conversely, one Norfolk millwright has at his own cost, been building a brand new Post Mill at South Walsham - the difference between public and private endeavor and a sign of the times unfortunatelyBack to East Anglian Museums

Also on display were a collection of small locally built engines and pumps, L to R, part of an organ engine made by Robert Tidman in Norwich, a piston valved single cylinder vertical made by Ellliot and Garroods to power on board dynamos for the herring drifters (this example of which once drove the blower in their forge) and an Ellliot and Garroods No 2 boiler feed pump.

Also by Elliot and Garroods this steam line hauler which could be moved manually either to the port or starboard side of a herring drifter (or other fishing boats) and a steam capstain or hoisting engine used either to haul in nets or hoist the catch out of the hold when in port (it is hung on a wall but the oil feeder cups indicate that it was used in this orientation).