For better or worse this trespassing website seems to have become a repository for Victorian and Edwardian era pumping equipment.
The current post contains about half of the remaining ram pumps in Gloucestershire, ordered alphabetically by location.
There are, or were, a lot of water pumps in this county mainly because of the Cotswolds - the blue pins in the map below are Gloucs and are mostly in the hilly bits.
This is good farming country, but with a porous limestone base there sometimes isn’t enough water on the high ground.
Hence all the pumps, usually raising water from the valleys - it’s a similar story for the Tabular Hills in North Yorkshire (report #6).
Most of the equipment is from the two major manufacturers John Blake and Green and Carter (G&C) - G&C took over Easton and also made the ‘Vulcan’ brand of ram.
Most were installed between 1900 and 1920 before mains water or electricity arrived.
Aldsworth. A ram in a locked sunken chamber - there were enough holes in the lid to see it was probably a Blake.
An unusual feature of this one was the free standing metal reservoir & filtration tank, filled by syphon from a nearby stream.
Aylburton 1. ‘Rams’ are shown in the Lydney Park Estate and I found the supply tank first, which has the usual flap over the inlet (drive) pipe for turning the water on and off.
Downhill from the tank in an inconspicuos underground chamber was a ram with a spherical air tank, probably an Easton although I didn’t bother opening it up to look for a maker’s name.
It looks like there were once two here, but one has gone.
Aylburton 2. Another estate ram, in a wooded valley along with other defunct water-related structures.
The hut was locked but there were enough gaps to see it was a compound Blake (driven by once source of water, but pumping a second purer source).
Blockley. A Vulcan in a neat hut, with water coming from a spring uphill.
Bourton-on-the-Water 1. This one was odd since someone seems to have messed up the plumbing and it was full of sewage.
Bourton-on-the-Water 2. Another in this region, not marked on maps but near an old pumping station.
Froggy was a bonus - I haven’t noticed many in Gloucs, maybe because the watercourses are so polluted by agricultural runoff.
Charlton Abbotts. There are three rams here, two Blakes in hut half way down a hill, one of which was still going.
The drive pipes for these were buried but you could hear and feel the shock waves underfoot while walking down.
And another running Blake at the bottom of the hill near a stream.
continued
The current post contains about half of the remaining ram pumps in Gloucestershire, ordered alphabetically by location.
There are, or were, a lot of water pumps in this county mainly because of the Cotswolds - the blue pins in the map below are Gloucs and are mostly in the hilly bits.
This is good farming country, but with a porous limestone base there sometimes isn’t enough water on the high ground.
Hence all the pumps, usually raising water from the valleys - it’s a similar story for the Tabular Hills in North Yorkshire (report #6).
Most of the equipment is from the two major manufacturers John Blake and Green and Carter (G&C) - G&C took over Easton and also made the ‘Vulcan’ brand of ram.
Most were installed between 1900 and 1920 before mains water or electricity arrived.
Aldsworth. A ram in a locked sunken chamber - there were enough holes in the lid to see it was probably a Blake.
An unusual feature of this one was the free standing metal reservoir & filtration tank, filled by syphon from a nearby stream.
Aylburton 1. ‘Rams’ are shown in the Lydney Park Estate and I found the supply tank first, which has the usual flap over the inlet (drive) pipe for turning the water on and off.
Downhill from the tank in an inconspicuos underground chamber was a ram with a spherical air tank, probably an Easton although I didn’t bother opening it up to look for a maker’s name.
It looks like there were once two here, but one has gone.
Aylburton 2. Another estate ram, in a wooded valley along with other defunct water-related structures.
The hut was locked but there were enough gaps to see it was a compound Blake (driven by once source of water, but pumping a second purer source).
Blockley. A Vulcan in a neat hut, with water coming from a spring uphill.
Bourton-on-the-Water 1. This one was odd since someone seems to have messed up the plumbing and it was full of sewage.
Bourton-on-the-Water 2. Another in this region, not marked on maps but near an old pumping station.
Froggy was a bonus - I haven’t noticed many in Gloucs, maybe because the watercourses are so polluted by agricultural runoff.
Charlton Abbotts. There are three rams here, two Blakes in hut half way down a hill, one of which was still going.
The drive pipes for these were buried but you could hear and feel the shock waves underfoot while walking down.
And another running Blake at the bottom of the hill near a stream.
continued
