Cobb's Engine House

Cobb's Engine House

Cobb's Engine House (properly known as Windmill End Pumping Station) in Rowley Regis, West Midlands, England, is a scheduled ancient monument and a Grade II listed building built around 1831.[1]

It housed a stationary steam pump used to pump water firstly from Windmill End Colliery and later other mines in the area. Utilizing a shaft 525 feet deep, 1,600,000 litres of water were pumped from the mines into the canal daily.[2] It ceased work in 1928 and the Newcomen type engine was moved to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan in 1930.[3] The engine house originally had a cylinder floor at ground level and two floors above but they and the roof have gone, leaving the building as a shell. The chimney stands 95 feet (29 m) high and is 11.5 square feet (1.07 m2) at the base, successively narrowing to 4 square feet (0.37 m2) at the top.[4]

It stands near Windmill End Junction in the Warren's Hall local nature reserve, where the Dudley No. 2 Canal and the Boshboil Arm meets the southern end of the Netherton Tunnel Branch Canal. The area came into the possession of Sir Horace St.Paul from his father-in-law, John Ward, 2nd Viscount Dudley and Ward, on his marriage to John's daughter Anna Maria Ward.[5] It was Horace who instigated the construction of the engine house.

References

  1. ^ "Cobbs Engine House Statistics". Archived from the original on 28 September 2007.
  2. ^ "Cobb's Engine House". Archived from the original on 9 April 2007.
  3. ^ "Listed Buildings in Rowley Regis". Archived from the original on 7 January 2007.
  4. ^ Historic England. "Cobbs Engine House And Chimney Warrens Hall Park (1229552)". National Heritage List for England.
  5. ^ "Sir Horace St.Paul".

52°29′34″N 2°04′08″W / 52.4929°N 2.069°W / 52.4929; -2.069

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