Bestwood Pumping Station

This is a disused water pumping station, built between 1871 and 1874 by Thomas Hawksley, engineer to the Nottingham Waterworks Company. It is constructed of polychromatic brick and sandstone, with ashlar dressings and a hipped slate roof. The building has a rectangular plan, incorporating a reaeration lateral boiler house, coal store, and a central integral chimney. It is designed in a Venetian Gothic Revival style.

The two-storey structure, with a basement, features eight bays by five bays. It has a battered plinth, linked hood moulds, a moulded cornice and gutter, ornate iron roof railings and finials, and pilasters to recessed flat-headed panels with corbel heads. The east gable has an open porch with balustraded steps leading to a round-arched opening and doorway, flanked by lancets; above is a round-arched window with two-light windows on either side. The sides have four-light pointed windows, each with an oculus above, and three louvred dormer windows, one at each end. The chimney, encased by the boiler house, has moulded impost bands, a cornice, two stages with three staggered stair lights separated by a battered section, and a pyramidal cap.

The boiler house to the west features three pointed arch recesses with double doors, flanked by single-light windows, with four bosses above. At each end is a round guard stone. The north and south sides have three-bay open arcades with round piers and foliate capitals, and two round bosses above. The east ends have a single two-light window and a boss above.

Inside, the walls are stuccoed with a stencil frieze. A cast-iron entablature features four cast-iron tapered columns with water-holding bases and traceried capitals, supporting a pivoting engine beam with Gothic ornament, and a heavy timber Queen post roof with double stone corbels and lifting eyes. The boiler house contains four round iron columns and an iron trussed roof.

Historically, the station housed a pair of Joseph Witham & Sons rotative beam engines, which were scrapped in 1968. The pumping station forms a group with the decorative cooling pond in front, lamps, an entrance lodge, and staff cottages. It was one of three enriched pumping stations built for the Nottingham Waterworks Company, alongside Papplewick and Basford (now demolished). Hawksley was recognized as the most pre-eminent waterworks engineer of his day, and this building represents his most accomplished work, successfully integrating the engine house, coal store, boiler house, and chimney with polychromatic detailing within a picturesque landscape.