Goldthorn Hill pumping station

Water pumping station, disused. c1851, by H J Marten, with input from Thomas Hawksley, for the Wolverhampton Waterworks Company. Built by Jones and Treasure of London.

MATERIALS: constructed of red brick with limestone ashlar dressings under slate-clad roofs which are hipped to the boiler house and coal shed.

PLAN: rectangular on plan, comprising the double-height engine house and attached boiler house and coal shed to east, with the square base of a chimney beyond.

EXTERIOR: the engine house is a double-height building of one storey, designed in the Italianate style. The roadside front is one bay wide, with two bays to the west and east elevations. The bays are articulated by clasping brick pilasters with moulded stone capitals, which rise to a cornice and a later brick parapet with stone coping. To the south-facing entrance bay is a tall, round-headed, moulded, blind arch with a pair of double doors (boarded over) beneath a bracketed cornice to the lower part and a round-arched window with metal-glazing bars above. Below the cornice are triple intersecting oculi with moulded stone surrounds. The side elevations are of a matching style with tall windows to the arches, and also intersecting oculi above. The four-bay boiler house has plain brick pilasters and round-arched windows. The brick chimney has a square section and has been truncated.

INTERIOR: not inspected (2014). The engine, beam floor and entablature have been removed from the engine house, and the boilers from the adjacent boiler house.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURE: there is a surviving section of ramped boundary wall, built of red brick with a capping of blue bricks, and a single, square, brick gate pier to the roadside frontage of the site.