Engine House, Boiler House And Workshop At Papplewick Pumping Station

The engine house, boiler house, and workshop form part of Papplewick Pumping Station, built in 1881 by M. O. Tarbotton for the Nottingham Corporation Water Department. The buildings are constructed of brick with coloured hipped slate roofs, ashlar and moulded brick dressings, and are executed in a Gothic Revival style.

The engine house features a plinth, moulded sill band, and blocking course. The east front has balustraded steps leading to a central timber porch with a mansard roof, supported by balusters and herms. A round-headed matchboard door is set within a decorative tympanum and hood mould. A central blind balcony is above the door, and a double lancet window tops the facade. The south and north sides each have four casements, and sides feature four round-headed Venetian double lancets with central herms. The roof has a diagonally set square ventilation louvre with a slated base and pyramidal roof with a finial.

The symmetrical boiler house is three bays long by six bays wide, with a battered plinth. The north side has six blind windows, while the gabled west end has three round-headed openings with close-boarded doors. Blind windows are set to the return angles on the east side, and the south side includes a six-bay workshop to the left and four blind windows to the right. The workshop has three round-headed cast iron casements at each end and six on the south side, topped with four louvred dormers.

The engine house interior boasts a painted dado with a moulded rail. It has a dentillated and moulded pivot beam flanked by a pair of moulded square iron piers on granite plinths. Further intermediate piers are constructed of square iron, with elaborate brass ornament and capitals depicting fish, water plants, and birds. Four stained glass windows on each side illustrate similar subjects. Curved, patterned iron staircases lead to the packing flat and the beam pivot level. The heavy, bolection-moulded roof incorporates queen post trusses, double purlins, and moulded ashlar corbels, with lifting eyes at each intersection. Original fittings remain, including two double-acting beam engines from 1884 by James Watt & Co., hand winches, a flow meter, a clock, two hanging oil lamps, racking for barring levers, and steel guardrails on iron stanchions.

The boiler house interior features channelled roof beams on round iron columns and triangulated iron roof trusses. It contains three brick-clad Lancashire boilers from 1883 by W. J. Galloway & Sons (one converted to oil firing) and three Pillatt Perfect Combustion Furnaces. The workshop has a moulded king post roof with curved brackets. Contents include a cylinder steam engine with a loop connecting rod by Thomas Matthews.

The buildings are a significant survival of three pumping stations built in the late 19th century to serve Nottingham City, standing out as the most ornate and complete of those remaining. Now a working museum managed by the Papplewick Pumping Station Trust, it is also designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument.