Listed Building: BESTWOOD PUMPING STATION (7.2.5)

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Grade II*
Authority
EH LBS Legacy ID 425220
Date assigned 05 September 1972
Date last amended

Description

Water pumping station, disused. 1871-74. By Thomas Hawksley, engineer to Nottingham Waterworks Company. Polychromatic brick and sandstone with ashlar dressings and hipped slate roof. Rectangular plan with rear lateral boiler house, coal store and central integral chimney. Venetian Gothic Revival style. 2 storeys and basement; 8 bays x 5 bays. Battered plinth, linked hood moulds, moulded cornice and gutter, ornate iron roof railings and finials; pilaster to recessed flat-headed panels with corbel heads. Coped east gable has open porch with balustraded steps and round arched opening to similar doorway with overly, with flanking lancets; above round-arched window with 2-light windows each side. Sides lave 4-light pointed windows each with oculus above, and 3 louvred dormer windows with 1 at each end. Square sectioned chimney encased by boiler house has moulded impost bands and cornice, of 2 stages each with 3 staggered stair lights separated by battered section and pyramidal cap on top. Boiler house has to west 3 pointed arch recesses with double doors, flanked by single light windows, and 4 bosses above, and at each end a round guard stone. North and south sides have 3-bay open arcades with round pies and foliate capitals, and 2 round bosses above. East ends lave single 2 and 1-light window and boss above. INTERIOR: stuccoed with stencil frieze, cast-iron entablature with 4 cast-iron tapered columns with water holding bases and traceried capitals, carrying pivoting engine beam with Gothic ornament, and heavy timber Queen post roof with double stone corbels and lifting eyes. Boiler house has 4 round iron columns and an iron trussed roof. Historical note: formerly contained a pair of Joseph Witham & Sons rotative beam engines, their last. scrapped in 1968. Forms a good group with the decorative cooling pond in front, lamps and entrance lodge and staff cottages (qqv). One of the three enriched pumping stations built for Nottingham Waterworks Co, and then the Corporation after it took the company over, including Papplewick (qv), and Basford, demolished. Hawksley was the most pre-eminent waterworks engineer of his day, and this is his most accomplished piece of architecture, successfully assimilating the engine house, coal store, boiler house and chimney with polychromatic effects, in a picturesque landscape. (NCC/js)

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Map

Location

Grid reference Centred SK 57923 48248 (37m by 49m)
Map sheet SK54NE
District Gedling
Locality Bestwood St Albans (as on GNBK)
Civil Parish Bestwood Park (G), Gedling

Related Monuments/Buildings (1)

Record last edited

Apr 29 2015 11:39AM

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