The Bratch Water Pumping Station

This is a late 19th-century water pumping station, dated 1895 and designed by Baldwin Latham as a consultant engineer for the Wolverhampton Corporation Water Department. Constructed of Ruabon red brick with blue and buff brick, stone, tile dressings, and a slate hipped roof, the building is now disused but the engine has been restored in the late 20th century. The design is Venetian Gothic Revival in style, incorporating Scottish Baronial details.

The rectangular plan includes a left-hand and rear boiler house, coal store, and borehole house. The symmetrical front elevation features paired blue brick bands, a Lombard frieze, and a crenellated parapet, with moulded, corbelled bartizans with fishscale slates to conical roofs and finials at the corners. A staircase leads to a gabled entrance surround featuring triple banded columns with foliate capitals, supporting a pointed archway with alternate red and white voussoirs, a Y-tracery fanlight, and double half-glazed doors. Flanking the entrance are recessed bays with pointed arches, each containing three-coloured patterned brick panels within the tympanum and mullion windows with shouldered arches. The first-floor windows have similar mullions. A single-window end return and two-window rear bays mirror the front design. Single-storey side and rear ranges feature openings with polychromatic heads and tympana. The side range has crow-stepped gables at each end, with two ground-floor and two smaller upper windows. The rear gabled range has a coped end gable.

The interior houses a pair of inverted vertical triple expansion steam engines, originally begun by James Watt and Co and completed by Thornewill and Wareham, linked to the adjoining borehole house via bell cranks. Brick detailing around the windows is consistent with the exterior.

The engines were installed in 1896 and 1897, with coal delivered from the nearby Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal. Pumping ceased in 1960. Between 1991 and 1996, the ‘Victoria’ engine was restored to working order. Original drawings for the ‘Bilston Water Works - Pumping Station at the Bratch’ still exist.

This is a remarkably elaborate design, blending elements from diverse architectural styles in an uncommon combination. The survival of the pumping plant, along with the unique architecture, makes the site exceptionally special and of outstanding interest.