Description

TRING RURAL GRAND UNION CANAL - SP 91 SW WENDOVER ARM (North side) Little Tring 4/62 - Tringford Pumping Station GV II

Water pumping station to fill Tring summit level of canal from reservoirs. Erected 1816-17 at 'spot determined by Mr Telford', with Boulton and Watt steam engine (date 1803 on C20 plaque incorrect) as second pumping station on Wendover feeder arm. Extended 1836-8 when station adapted as single centralised pumping station with 2nd steam engine ('York' engine) added, removed 1913, boiler house on N side mid C19, diesel engine house in NE angle dated '1911', beam engine removed and engine house reduced in height 1927 (plaque over door '1803/1927'). Red brick original engine-and-pumphouse, brown brick extensions, uniform sandstone dressings added to existing round headed windows, and slated pitched roofs. A long narrow brick pumphouse parallel with the canal and with outflow ponds between. 4 round-headed large windows with keystones and impost blocks. Still in use with long headings from reservoirs concentrating on 3 deep brick wells in the pumphouse. Water now pumped by electric pumps up to level of canal arm which flows into the Marsworth end of the summit level. Wider and lower Boiler House extends along much of N side of pumphouse. Brown brick with blue brick offset to plinth and segmental arches to openings. Widespan C19 king-post timber trusses spanning from corbels on rear wall of pumphouse to piers in N wall. Designed for 2 boilers. Underfloor air intakes from small round headed external opening low down in middle of N wall there 22 1/2 inches thick. 2 high double doors with 2 large windows with cast iron framed small-pane frames in W gable end. Toothed brick band in corbelled verge. 5 bays panelled N side with 2 similar windows. Yellow brick diesel engine house with red brick dressings and canted corner, in the NE angle of the other buildings. 2 tall round headed windows and door. Small panes and windows at ground level. Interior in glazed brick with dado and raised platform formerly supporting 100hp and 50hp diesel engines. Pumphouse entered by round headed double doorway in N side of part projecting to W of boiler house. 27" thick side-walls and 5ft thick crosswall built to support the 24ft long cast iron beam of the pumping engine. Photographs and a plaque record this in use and during removal. Erected 1817-8 it had a 49 1/2 inch diameter cylinder and a 8ft stroke. The doorway is flanked by 2 tall Tuscan cast iron columns from the engine frame topped by balls from the superstructure. An ornamental cast iron trestle from the valve assembly is built into the apex of the W gable. An earlier pumping station at Whitehouses (1802) pumped from Wilstone No. 1 Reservoir but was superceded by Tringford pumping station and was subsequently demolished. Wilstone Reservoir was heightened in 1811 and 1827 and extended in 1835 (No. 2) and 1839 (No. 3) by which time it had been supplemented by Marsworth Reservoir (1806), Tringford Reservoir (1814), and Startops End Reservoir (1815). They supply the summit level of the canal main line, opened in 1799 as the Grand Junction Canal. The Wendover Arm opened in the same year, was closed to commercial traffic in 1896 and a long stretch beyond the pumping station has been filled in. (D.G.McGavey Grand Union Canal: The History of Tringford Pumping Station 1817-1945 1946, typed m.s.in Local History Library, County Hall, Hertford: Branch Johnson(1970)118).

Listing NGR: SP9179712971

External Links

• Wikidata Q26320551

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