Dirtness Pumping Station

Drainage pumping station, built in 1867. The building is constructed of red brick in English bond, with polychrome brick and ashlar dressings, and has a Welsh slate roof. Sandstone ashlar culverts and revetments stabilize the bank. The layout consists of a central engine house flanked by ranges to the north and south, with the southern range built over a culvert carrying the Boating Dike / North Engine Drain.

The engine house is tall and single-storeyed. Its east side features twin pilasters with decorative brick capitals supporting a full-height round arch. Within the arch is a recessed brick panel with a tall, twin-pointed window containing Gothick glazing, nook-shafts, and a round arch of black brick with polychrome impost bands. A recessed door and steps were inserted into the right window in the 20th century. The gable has a trefoiled polychrome brick frieze, moulded kneelers, and stone coping with carved heads in trefoiled gablets at each end.

The single-bay south pump-room range is slightly set back to the left and stands on a recessed segmental arch over the ashlar-lined sluice. It has an angle pilaster to the left and a brick and ashlar corbel to the right, which carry a round arch with a carved ashlar Neptune head keystone above a recessed panel containing a segmental-headed window with some replaced glazing bars. It features a corbelled polychrome brick raking cornice and a stone-coped gable.

The 4-bay north range is set back to the right and features a blind arcade of round arches on pilasters. A waggon entrance to the right arch has board doors beneath a fanlight with vertical glazing bars, while the arches to the left have recessed panels with brick bands and lunettes with radial glazing bars. It has twin gables, each with a blind oculus, corbelled brick cornices, and stone coping. The south side features a 5-bay blind arcade with black brick lozenge ornament and polychrome brick capitals. A double board door, a 16-pane sash window, and a timber lintel are present. The north side mirrors this style, although partially obscured by a 20th-century addition. The west side is similar to the east, aside from the engine house having a tall round-headed window with glazing bars and the ranges displaying a 16-pane sash and a small 4-pane window with a carved lion's head keystone.

The interior engine house has had its original machinery removed. The northern range contains cast-iron columns. The pumping station originally housed a James Watt low-pressure condensing beam engine from Soho, Birmingham, powering a scoop wheel. It was refitted in 1928 and again in 1952 with electrically driven pumps.