Bedfordwell Pumping Station, Eastbourne

Bedfordwell Pumping Station, Eastbourne

Built in 1881–83 for Eastbourne Waterworks Company Limited, this is a Classical style engine house and attached boiler house designed by architect Henry Currey. A further floor was inserted into the engine house after 1923.

The building is constructed of yellow brick with red brick dressings, corner stones to the cornice, and a slate roof. It is roughly T-shaped in plan with an additional projection on the north side. The tall rectangular engine house to the west rises about 42 feet in height and measures five bays long by five bays wide. The wider boiler room is attached to the east, standing about 25 feet high, and comprises two parallel ranges with a projection on the north side.

The engine house has a hipped roof topped by a large rectangular glazed lantern, also hipped. Below the lantern runs a moulded brick parapet with stone corner stones and a band of machicolations. The main floor features tall round-headed windows with iron glazing bars, keystones, band, impost blocks and some pilasters. The north-facing ground floor has a projecting single-storey section with a central round-headed entrance with fanlight and double doors, flanked by two round-headed sash windows with iron glazing bars on each side. The west side repeats this treatment at main floor level, with five elliptical-headed windows at ground level. The south side has similar main-floor treatment and a projecting entrance with a gable with bargeboards and a round-headed opening with keystone, impost blocks and plinth. The east side follows the same main-floor pattern but adjoins the lower boiler house.

The boiler house comprises two parallel ranges. The north range has a projecting section at its west end with an external chimneystack, round-headed window opening and cambered-headed doorcase. The east end contains two inserted 20th-century steel shuttered entrances. The south range features a rectangular glazed lantern to the roof. Its south side has two Diocletian openings, a late-20th-century window inserted at the east end, and a late-20th-century double door inserted at the west end. The east end, which backs directly onto the railway line, has end gables with Diocletian windows.

Internally, the former engine house has a painted brick interior with elliptical arches to the cross walls. The lower ground floor retains composite girders and four cast-iron, diagonally-braced supports for the beam engine. The original ground floor was replaced with reinforced concrete around 1923, and an additional floor of similar construction was inserted at a higher level. Some walls are lined with glazed bricks. The roof lantern is boarded and supported by slender cast-iron trusses. A cast-iron staircase with cylindrical balusters and scrolled tread ends connects the ground floor of the engine house with the lower ground floor of the boiler house. Each tread is moulded and inscribed 'Hawksleys Patent Step J Westwood Junr London E'. The former boiler house contains elliptical-arched blank arches to the end wall and cast-iron columns supporting cast-iron slender roof trusses.