Prickwillow Engine House

TL 58 SE 606-/10/10001

ELY MAIN STREET (south side) Prickwillow Prickwillow Engine House

II

Drainage engine house and Mirrlees engine with pump; converted to museum of industrial archaeology. Single remaining bay of 1842 house; rebuilt in 1880; engine and pump opened in 1923. Constructed by the Middle Fen and Mere Board; the initials of its Clerk, Goodwyn Luddington Archer, are to be found on a stone on the inside of the west wall. Brick in English bond; gable-facing roof of 1880 block of corrugated metal with metal ventilators at either end of the ridge; lean-to roof to lower, earlier structure, parapeted. Single storey. Two-window range with earlier block of one bay set bay from main elevation and having one-window range. Interior of main block divided into five bays by timber trusses. Main elevation with round-arched openings in round-arched recesses; roundel to facing gable bricked in; below datestone with initials, W.H. and J.S., very likely those of the builder. Purlins and simply moulded barge board to gable eaves; common rafter ends on left return cut as volutes.

Interior: original roof receives additional support from a grid of steel "I" beams, set in interior buttress strips. Trusses comprised of strutted king and queen posts carried on a continuous brick corbel table. Documentary evidence indicates that the structure was built on timber piles overlaid with concrete base; brick-lined well to pump at west; In 1923, the original beam engine replaced by five-cylinder Mirrlees diesel engine, driving a centrifugal pump.

Listing NGR: TL5977282424