Pump and walling, Main Street, Clogh, Ballymena, Co Antrim

Pump and Walling, Main Street, Clogh

This is a disused cast iron water pump of circa 1900, sheltered by a low U-shaped rendered wall, prominently sited in the centre of the village of Clogh on the east side of Main Street.

The pump itself is relatively simple in design, with a narrow shaft rising to a curved bowl topped with a decorative cap. The short spout projects to the west, while a long curving pumping handle (known as a 'cow-tail' handle) extends to the south. A moulded band encircles the middle of the bowl section, embossed with the plumber's name 'A Clyde – Ballymena'. Below this band, the bowl is convex and fluted, with a rope pattern rim at its base. Above the band, the bowl is concave but also fluted. The cap itself has a rope pattern base rim and rises and narrows in concave form to a simple moulding topped with a small fluted dome. The shaft is grooved spirally along its length.

The surrounding U-shaped wall is topped with curved coping and acts both as a shelter around the pump and as a retaining wall for the higher ground to the east and north. The inner face of the wall is rendered and painted, whilst the outer face is unrendered, revealing some repair work carried out in concrete brick. To the southeast corner, the outer face is abutted by a breeze block wall, and to the south by a timber fence, both belonging to a recently built neighbouring house. To the north of the wall is a well-tended flower bed.

The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1835 record that a pump was about to be sunk in the centre of the village of Clogh at that point, likely at the behest of the village's improving landlord, Sampson Moore. Moore had previously built the large hotel just to the northeast of the pump's site, raised some of his tenant's houses to two storeys with slated roofs, and was establishing a post office and attempting to establish a grain and butter market. The valuation map of circa 1838 gives no indication of a pump's presence at that date, though this does not necessarily mean it had not been installed. A small circle shown at this site on the Ordnance Survey map of 1857 suggests the pump was in place by that point, but the letter 'P' for pump first appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1921. The design of the present cast iron pump suggests it was installed in the last quarter of the 19th century or very early 20th century, with similar designs appearing in catalogues of the very early 1900s. The name on the pump, 'A Clyde – Ballymena', probably refers to Alexander Clyde, a plumber who was in business in Ballymena from circa 1884 to 1922.