Bestwood Pumping Station

SK 54 NE 1569/4/5 05/09/72

BESTWOOD ST ALBANS MANSFIELD ROAD (West side) Bestwood Pumping Station

II*

Water pumping station, disused. 1871-74. By Thomas Hawksley, engineer to Nottingham Waterworks Company. Polychromatic brick and sandstone with ashlar dressings and hipped slate roof. Rectangular plan with reaer lateral boiler house, coal store and central integral chimney. Venetian Gothic Revival style. 2 storeys and basement; 8 bays x 5 bays. Battered plinth, linked hood moulds, moulded cornice and gutter, ornate iron roof railings and finials; pilasters to recessed flat-headed panels with corbel heads. Coped east gable has open porch with balustraded steps and round-arched opening to similar doorway with overlight, with flanking lancets; above round-arched window with 2-light windows each side. Sides have 4-light pointed windows each with oculus above, and 3 louvred dormer windows with 1 at each end. Square sectioned chimney encased by boiler house has moulded impost bands and cornice, of 2 stages each with 3 staggered stair lights separated by battered section and pyramidal cap on top. Boiler house has to west 3 pointed arch recesses with double doors, flanked by single-light windows, and 4 bosses above, and at each end a round guard stone. North and south sides have 3-bay open arcades with round piers and foliate capitals, and 2 round bosses above. East ends have single 2- and 1-light window and boss above. INTERIOR stuccoed with stencil frieze, cast-iron entablature with 4 cast-iron tapered columns with water holding bases and traceried capitals, carrying pivoting engine beam with Gothic ornament, and heavy timber Queen post roof with double stone corbels and lifting eyes. Boiler house has 4 round iron columns and an iron trussed roof. Historical note: Formerly contained a pair of Joseph Witham & Sons rotative beam engines, their last, scrapped in 1968. Forms a good group with the decorative cooling pond in front, lamps and entrance lodge and staff cottages (qqv). One of three enriched pumping stations built for Nottingham Waterworks Co, and then the Corporation after it took the company over, including Papplewick (qv), and Basford, demolished. Hawksley was the most pre-eminent waterworks engineer of his day, and this is his most accomplished piece of architecture, successfully assimilating the engine house, coal store, boiler house and chimney with polychromatic effects, in a picturesque landscape.

Listing NGR: SK5792848246