So then steam buffs, whats this all about then? It seems to have a handle at the top for pumping and a tap at the front. Not normal for a steam engine is it? I'm only assuming its a steam engine because it has a funnel or chimney!

🔗Personal-Album-4-Image-021[linkphoto]Personal-Album-4-Image-021[/linkphoto][/link]

I think it is a Tar Boiler, for heating tar. Not actually a "proper boiler" as it isn't under pressure, but known as that. It was used in connection with road works I think.

Alternatively it could be a pigs swill heater.

The long arm on the top with what appears to be a weight on the end might indicate it is in fact kept under slight pressure.

Is it at Coalbrookdale?

There's a tar tunnel there, so if that, er, Thing lives there, I'd suggest that JnC may well be correct. 🙂

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Yep its def a tar heater/boiler.... Un believably saw 3 dumped behind Port Adelaide Railway Museum almost identical to this and both had been in use until a few years before for road patching purposes. Over here my Dad says these things were still in use until the early 60's on our roads.... I have seen something else similar which was a portable "Pig Swill Boiler" on wheels on a farm!!.

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I have seen something else similar which was a portable "Pig Swill Boiler" on wheels on a farm!!.

This sounds absolutely gruesome !
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/christopher.brock/harry2.html 

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This link shows a close up of the opening.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/christopher.brock/harry1.html 

There would seem to be blades inside that presumably rotate to keep the swill stirred (obviously they like it stirred not shaken).

Kinda looks like my oven after I attempt to cook......

On a serious note, where I grew up in Heanor there was a farm there that had an old Haystack Boiler rusting away at back of a barn.... it was off a small Steam Engine (Newcomen maybe?)and had been bought for boiling pig swill, it only disappeared about 10 -12 years ago.! The farm hand (who was about 60) remembered it being removed from a disused pit in Selston in Notts. 🙂 The farmer just used to light a big fire under it but it never worked as it took way too much heat to get the plates hot so he shoved it behind the barn. It still had all its flanges and inlets on and whilst not complete was definately late 1700 - early 1800's judging by the rivets and plates... I did not have a camera at time....
If you keep your eyes skimmed there is old mining stuff every where. I've driven past some timbers at side of road near where I live, I mean massive.... turns out they were the headframe timbers from Oakerthorpe Colliery Pumping Station! They've been their 25 years that I can remember and a local told me what they were.

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Is it at Coalbrookdale?

There's a tar tunnel there

Its not far from there, in the ironbridge gorge area. The Tar tunnel is a little further down river. http://www.aditnow.co.uk/mines/Tar-Tunnel-Bitumen-Mine/?gowhere=%2fmines%2f%3fpID%3d1%3fpid%3d1%26ac%3dA%26ad%3d50 

On a serious note, where I grew up in Heanor there was a farm there that had an old Haystack Boiler rusting away at back of a barn.... it was off a small Steam Engine (Newcomen maybe?)and had been bought for boiling pig swill, it only disappeared about 10 -12 years ago.! The farm hand (who was about 60) remembered it being removed from a disused pit in Selston in Notts. 🙂 The farmer just used to light a big fire under it but it never worked as it took way too much heat to get the plates hot so he shoved it behind the barn. It still had all its flanges and inlets on and whilst not complete was definately late 1700 - early 1800's judging by the rivets and plates... I did not have a camera at time....

Sheesh, some of the steam engine buffs would sell their children to get their hands on an original Newcomen boiler! Unfortunately, the farmer probably flogged it to a scrap merchant who'll have chopped it up without realising what it was.

However, there may be another Newcomen engine in Derbyshire still in situ - there was one underground at Yatestoop mine in Winster, and there are no records of it having been brought back to day and sold once it stopped being used. Unfortunately, if it's still there, it's 500ft down, and the shaft to it is blocked at about 300ft. Yatestoop sough should also connect with the engine chamber it but it's blocked, and the landowners won't allow access for a dig. There are other possible shafts onto the sough, but they're blocked too and no-one's mustered the will to try and unblock one. Still, the possibility is there, and the Yatestoop engine is a bit like the Tutankhamun's tomb of mine archaeology in the Peak - we'll get in one day..... 😉

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Im sure you know but there is a working Newcomen steam pump at the Black country museum

There's also an original Newcomen engine preserved at Elsecar near Barnsley - a late example dating to the 1820s, which was worked as late as the 1920s.

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Seen the Elsecar engine and its a magic survivor.... wish the one at Pentrich near my home had survived in its engine house. The engine was moved I think to the science museum?. I found a nice pic of it at Pentrich and will post it when I find it.

I had heard about the one in Yatestoop... though I did think it was a myth.

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I had heard about the one in Yatestoop... though I did think it was a myth.

I'd call it a possibility more than a myth - the suggestion that it was still there was raised by the late Nellie Kirkham after she'd studied the available records of Yatestoop mine. The records described it being installed undergound, there were coal accounts for when it was working, but when the mine stopped buying coal for the engine, there was nothing listed about costs for removing the engine and its associated parts, nor are there any known records of it being offered for sale as was usually the case when mines disposed of engines.

That's not to say it wasn't sold, for example there's no known record of the engine briefly working on Hubbadale mine in the 1840s under John Taylor having been sold or moved, but it must have gone somewhere. However, with the Yatestoop engine being 500ft underground and semi-obsolete by the time they stopped using it, there is the real possibility that they knew its sale price wouldn't cover the cost of raising it back to the surface and so left it there.

So, it may still be there waiting for a dedicated team of mine explorers to either unblock the shaft or push through the sough....

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It would be an amazing opportunity for someone, amazed its never been tried ... finding it that is. Your theoryu sounds good to me.

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According to the Newcomen Society.

There are no true Newcomen engines in existence today, but at the Black Country Living Museum at Dudley there is a unique full-sized working replica of the 1712 Dudley Castle engine, based on a drawing of 1719. The engine is operated under steam from time to time, and can be observed by the public.

At Dartmouth there is a small atmospheric engine donated by the British Transport Commission, and erected by Mr Arthur Pyne, member of the Newcomen Society, in 1963. Its early history is not certain, but it was used by the Coventry Canal Company from 1821-1913 for pumping water into the canal at Hawkesbury Junction. It is fitted with a later form of condenser, but has the traditional timber rocking beam. The refurbished engine house now has a hydraulic mechanism and some descriptive material on display.
There is another, much modified, atmospheric engine at Elsecar, but this has cast-iron beams of a later period, parallel motion and a separate condenser patented by James Watt in 1769.

http://www.newcomen.com/thomas.htm 

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It would be an amazing opportunity for someone, amazed its never been tried ... finding it that is. Your theoryu sounds good to me.

It has been tried up to a point - there were efforts to get down the shaft in the 1970s, including dropping a tv camera down on a cable which showed it blocked at about 300ft and with water pouring through about 50ft above that so no-one's tried that route. Some work has been done towards clearing the sough but that had to stop when the landowner's insurers decided letting anyone in was too risky. There are more shafts that might be tried, some prominent mine explorers in Derbyshire have considered trying to unblock one of them and clear the sough from the other side, but as Yatestoop sough is driven in shale to begin with there could be a lot of blockages to get through....

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Yeah you've got me thumbing thru my Derbyshire stuff, from my limited experience the perils of shale I remember well from the loose sections of Cromford Sough on a trip up that... one touch and it fell away.... So how far do you reckon would have to be re-opened in Horizontal terms and what stowed up water risk would there be? Surely this would be a real dangerous dig on a sough. How long is the sough for that matter? Are there full plans any where?

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Hi Carnkie,
So whats the status of the ex Pentrich Colliery one... is it science museum...?

On the subject of Newcomen Engines, I'm told that Wheal Anne was possibly a Newcomen engine house, very narrow bob wall, suggesting timber beam.
Regs ICLOK

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As far as I'm aware it's not in the Science Museum but I'm no expert.
As far as Wheal Ann(e) goes the engine house was constructed during the early nineteenth century, and may have contained a modified Watt engine. It is unusual too because of the light construction of the bob wall which confirms the use of a wooden beam or ‘bob’. Cast iron bobs were ubiquitous during the remainder of the nineteenth century, so this would have been amongst the last in Cornwall of its kind.

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Thanks for that on Wheal Ann(e), all I remember was getting told something about the bob wall, interesting stuff so ta much as it completes the picture for me.

Re Pentrich I had a dig and......

Very Good Diagram of Pentrich Engine here...
http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/results.asp?image=10280706 

And I just found out I was right and the atmospheric engine is in the Science Museum on display.
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/on-line/energyhall/page2.asp 

Cheers

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