Smethwick New Pumping House Approximately 50 Metres North West of Brasshouse Lane Birmingham Canal Birmingham Level is a Grade II listed building in the Sandwell local planning authority area, England. First listed on 29 December 1978. Pumping house.
Smethwick New Pumping House Approximately 50 Metres North West of Brasshouse Lane Birmingham Canal Birmingham Level
- WRENN ID
- ghost-beam-tarn
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Sandwell
- Constituency
- Smethwick MP: Gurinder Singh Josan (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 29 December 1978
- Type
- Pumping house
- OS grid reference
- SP 019 889
- Coordinates
- 52.49813, -1.97305
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Smethwick New Pumping House, built in 1892, is located approximately 50 metres north-west of Brasshouse Lane on the Birmingham Canal. This structure serves as a pumping house situated between Smeaton's Old Main Line on the Wolverhampton Level and Telford's New Main Line on the Birmingham Level.
The building is constructed of brick and features a slate roof. It is one storey high on the Old Main Line side and two storeys on the New Main Line side. The lower storey showcases a four-bay blind arcade with an impost band and includes a smaller doorway within the right-hand arch. The upper storey has four windows with segmental heads, two of which are blocked, and features a drip course. There is a miniature false machicolation at the eaves, and to the left, there is an ashes hole with a doorway for ash removal. The hipped slate roof is divided into two spans and includes louvred ridge ventilators. The right-hand return wall consists of three bays with blocked windows. The north-east wall, which faces the upper level, has two wide elliptical arches with smaller inner segmental arches; the right-hand arch is blocked while the left-hand arch serves as a doorway. In front of the right-hand archway are the foundation walls of the coal hole.
Inside, the pumping house features steel roof trusses. Historically, this pumping house replaced two earlier pumping stations on the Engine Arm of the Birmingham Canal. It was the last pumping house built on this section of the canal and originally housed two vertical compound engines that drove centrifugal pumps capable of lifting 200 locks per day. In 1905, one engine was removed for use at Bentley, while the remaining engine continued to operate until the early 1920s. The pumping house remains a prominent feature of the canalside landscape.
Local climate
Smethwick New Pumping House Approximately 50 Metres North West of Brasshouse Lane Birmingham Canal Birmingham Level receives an average of 790 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 59% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 74% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 40 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 77% of listed buildings. Of these, 20 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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- 5 Brindley Bank Pumping Station
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