Hundred Foot Pumping Station

The Hundred Foot Pumping Station is a pumping station dating from 1830, designed by Joseph Gwynne for the Littleport and Downham Commissioners. It replaced a windmill and is one of seventy-five such stations in the area. Constructed of gault brick with slate and corrugated asbestos roofs, it comprises a three-storey engine house, a wheelhouse to the right, and a boiler room and workshop (originally a coking shed) to the left. The gabled elevation of the engine house features double sliding doors at ground floor level, and round and flat arched fixed windows with cast iron glazing bars at the first and second floors. Plaques inscribed with verses commemorating the installation of the steam engine are present.

Inside, the 1914 pump remains in use, powered by a Ruston Oil Engine which replaced the original Gwynne engine. A paved second floor and staircase are intact, although the lower galleries have been removed. The boiler house now functions as a diesel oil storage area. The original engine was designed to pump water at two speeds into a tidal river. The larger 50-foot diameter wheel was the largest in the Fens. The station was built on a raft of 600 piles using 300,000 bricks. A new pumping station is planned for the site, which will incorporate the 1926 engine house.