163, Newton Road

SX 89 66 TORQUAY NEWTON ROAD (North side)

885-1/7/192 No.163 10.1.75

II*

Pumping house of the South Devon Atmospheric Railway, projected to run between Exeter and Plymouth. 1847-48 by IK Brunel for the South Devon Railway Company. Local grey limestone rubble with some red sandstone and red brick dressings; corrugated asbestos roof, gabled at ends. Italianate style with campanile chimney. PLAN: 2 parallel adjoining blocks, roofed on a north-south axis, probably intended to contain boilers and beam engine respectively. Chimney at south end of shorter east block. EXTERIOR: East block single-storey, east block partly floored. 3:2-window end elevation, the chimney external and sited in the centre of the right-hand block. The left-hand block has 3 high-set windows in the gable end. Centre window pilastered and round-headed with a keyblock. The arch is blocked and flanked by square-headed windows with proud architraves. Modern opening below. The right-hand block has 2 round-headed windows with proud architraves on either side of the chimney. Tapering chimney with deep ashlar plinth and tall round-headed recesses on each face. String course towards the top and, above it, corner pilasters. Heavy cornice on moulded corbels below low-pitched pyramidal roof. The left return of the western block has a chamfered string course and 2 large square-headed window with proud architraves. These are probably original. To the left, 3 first and 3 ground-floor windows and a doorway with brick dressings are probably secondary . INTERIOR: Altered or present usage. Roof of western block concealed. Eastern block has timber tie beam trusses the purlins held on cleats. An account of the railway is given in Hadfield's 'Atmospheric Railways' (1985). The Starcross pumping house from the operational section of the same line, is the only complete pumping house to survive from the 3 operational atmospheric lines in the British Isles. Campanile chimney here is more complete than at Starcross. The building was never used for its original purpose.

Bibliography

4418 Atmospheric Railways (Charles Hadfield), 1985 4418 The Buildings of England, Devon South (Nikolaus Pevsner) , 1952, Page(s) 855 4418 The Buildings of England, Devon (Nikolaus Pevsner and Bridget Cherry), 1989, Page(s) 855

Listing NGR: SX8990166204