The Bratch Water Pumping Station

WOMBOURNE

SO8687 BRATCH LANE 1576/13/143 (South side) 09-OCT-1980 II* Water pumping station, now disused but with engine restored late-C20. Dated 1895, Baldwin Latham, consultant engineer, for the Wolverhampton Corporation Water Department. Ruabon red brick with blue and buff brick, stone and tile dressings and a slate hipped roof. Rectangular plan with left-hand and rear boiler house, coal store and borehole house. Venetian Gothic Revival style with Scottish Baronial details. 2 storeys and basement; 2-window range. EXTERIOR: Symmetrical front has paired blue brick bands, Lombard frieze and crenellated parapet, the corners enriched by moulded, corbelled bartizans with fishscale slates to conical roofs with finials. A flight of steps leads up to a gabled entrance surround with triple banded columns with foliate capitals to a pointed archway with alternate red and white voussoirs, Y-tracery fanlight and double half-glazed doors. Flanking pointed-arched recessed bays with arches as the entrance, with three-coloured patterned brick panels to the tympanum and between mullion windows, the first-floor ones with shouldered arches. 1-window end return and 2-window rear bays as the front. Single-storey side and rear ranges have openings with polychromatic heads and tympana, the side range with crow-stepped gables each end with 2 ground-floor and 2 smaller upper windows, and a rear gabled range with a coped end gable. INTERIOR: Contains a pair of inverted vertical triple expansion steam engines, begun by James Watt and Co, and completed by Thornewill and Wareham when Watt foundered. They worked through bell cranks in the adjoining borehole house. Brick detailing at the windows is similar to exterior. HISTORY: The two engines were installed in 1896 and 1897; coal was delivered from the adjoining Staffs-Worcester Canal, and pumping stopped in 1960. Between 1991-96, the 'Victoria' engine was renovated to working order. The original drawings for the 'Bilston Water Works - Pumping Station at the Bratch' survive.

A remarkably elaborate design with an uncommon combination of elements from widely different sources, illustrating the sometimes unlettered determination of the period to make the pumping station a building of architectural distinction. The unique architecture and survival of the pumping plant make this a very special site, of outstanding interest.

Listing NGR: SO8682993727