Pumphouse - MOTAT
Category
Engineering Plant (eg railway, locomotive, car, plane)
Description
Prior to 1877, the citizens of Auckland had very inadequate water supplies and suffered huge losses from major fires in the city. William Errington (1832 - 1894), an engineer trained in UK was commissioned by Auckland City Council in 1874 to design the Western Springs Pumping Station with associated pipelines and reservoirs. Coal fired boilers operated a steam engine driving a 16.3 tonne, 6.25m diameter flywheel and 7.3m beam operated twin pumps raising up to 13,600m3 water per day, 71.6 m to the Ponsonby Reservoir. This system brought huge health benefits to the city when first commissioned in March 1877. The pumps served Auckland until 1910 when adequate water from the Waitakere Ranges became available. From 1920 when the springs showed significant signs of pollution, they were used in emergency only and heavily chlorinated. By 1936 it was recommended the machinery be scrapped and the original boilers were removed in the following year.
The beam engine, housed in its attractive mid-Victorian brick pumphouse is now the centre piece of Auckland’s Museum of Transport and Technology (MOTAT). The engine has been painstakingly restored over four years to working order by the MOTAT Steam Volunteer team. The machinery has been excellently restored by the MOTAT volunteers under the direction of Ken Pointon. On 19 April 2008 the restoration was officially opened by the Prime Minister Rt. Hon Helen Clark. It operates with steam most Thursday afternoons. Ken Pointon was awarded the Colin Crisp Award at the Australasian Engineering Heritage Conference in November 2009 for “the most outstanding conservation of an engineering work of historic or heritage significance”. This is the first occasion that this award has been made to a New Zealand project.
In 2009 the Pumphouse and Pumphouse Beam Engine and Engineer’s Cottage won the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award of Merit for the Culture Heritage Conservation programme, the only new Zealand buildings to have received such an award.
Owner Museum of Transport and Technology
Location 805 Great North Road, Auckland
Open Daily 10am to 5.00pm (Closed Christmas Day)
Last entry - 4.30pm
References:
………; The Beam Engine & Western Springs Pumping Station, MOTAT April 2008
Lorraine M Wilson; An iron Essay - A Short History of the beam Engine and Western Springs Waterworks, MOTAT 1994
C W Firth; A Century of Water Supply for Auckland New Zealand, Auckland Regional Authority, December 1967
G J Murdoch; The Water Supply of Metropolitan Auckland. (unpublished), Watercare Services Auckland
F W Furkert; Early New Zealand Engineers. Wellington AW & AH Reed 1953.
Click here to view: (yet to be attached)
- MOTAT Gems shine in International Heritage Awards
- Picture Beam engine and MOTAT’s Mike Austin with school party
Click here to view an article about the Beam Engine. Copy reproduced with the kind permission of The Shed magazine. http://www.theshedmag.co.nz
Location
MOTAT – Western Springs, Auckland
Region/s
Auckland
Access Info
Open 7 Days except Christmas Day from 10am.
Last entry 4.30pm, MOTAT closes at 5pm
Nature of Engineering
Infrastructure (incl. Road, water, ports)