Where
By the side of the River Wye in Hereford.
What
Victorian pumping station housing the oldest triple-expansion steam pumping engine in Britain. The museum is both a Grade II listed building and a scheduled monument.
Opened
1974, the year that water undertakings were privatised. It is open every Tuesday; on the second and last Sundays between Easter and October, the engines are "in steam".
Collection
The fundamentals of the collection are the still-working steam engines that belong to the building, one of which is the triple-expansion engine. Chairman Noel Meeke says that the museum has 60 colossal engines and a number of smaller ones. It also has a re-creation of a Victorian ablutions room. It recently took delivery of a water-pumping engine that had supplied a Hereford munitions factory during the second world war.
Help at hand
The Waterworks is a wholly volunteer-operated museum, points out Meeke. It has a core force of 40 regular volunteers and 16 engineers, all of them retired, most from positions of high responsibility in organisations such as the RAF and industry. Meeke himself is a physicist and electrical engineer who has worked in British industry and academia.
Budget
"As chairman, I have to go out into the big, naughty world and find money for the big things," says Meeke. Funding for the museum's new build has come from the Heritage Lottery Fund, English Heritage and the Southall Trust, which provided half the money for the new building housing a second world war exhibition.
"Entrance fees are currently a modest £3, but rising oil prices will necessitate a rise for the days that the museum is in steam in 2009. The site is owned by Dwr Cymru Welsh Water, which has given Waterworks a 99-year lease. "They are incredibly helpful behind the scenes, and they have made a major cash contribution to the site," says Meeke.
Visitors
4,000 a year.
Survival tip
"It's essential for us to have someone who is good at drawing up fundraising applications." Meeke, as a former academic, has plenty of experience.
Highlight
Visitors from all over the world make a beeline for the triple-expansion engine and its associated Lancashire boiler, Meeke says.
"Latterly, they've been visiting the new building devoted to Hereford during the second world war where we have a Blackstone five-cylinder engine, restored to working order. It was used for fire fighting at a Hereford munitions factory during the war. We're not a museum that normally does exhibitions - we let our engines speak for themselves - but this is our first permanent one."
Sticky moment
"There are occasions when a major engine or boiler misbehaves before a big event," says Meeke. "Our engines need a lot of tender, loving care. Luckily, we have the engineering expertise to provide it."
Current project
The Waterworks has just received an "absolutely massive" water pump that supplied Brighton from 1935 to recent times. It will be exhibited externally, all 15 feet and 10 tons of it.
www.waterworksmuseum.org.uk
By the side of the River Wye in Hereford.
What
Victorian pumping station housing the oldest triple-expansion steam pumping engine in Britain. The museum is both a Grade II listed building and a scheduled monument.
Opened
1974, the year that water undertakings were privatised. It is open every Tuesday; on the second and last Sundays between Easter and October, the engines are "in steam".
Collection
The fundamentals of the collection are the still-working steam engines that belong to the building, one of which is the triple-expansion engine. Chairman Noel Meeke says that the museum has 60 colossal engines and a number of smaller ones. It also has a re-creation of a Victorian ablutions room. It recently took delivery of a water-pumping engine that had supplied a Hereford munitions factory during the second world war.
Help at hand
The Waterworks is a wholly volunteer-operated museum, points out Meeke. It has a core force of 40 regular volunteers and 16 engineers, all of them retired, most from positions of high responsibility in organisations such as the RAF and industry. Meeke himself is a physicist and electrical engineer who has worked in British industry and academia.
Budget
"As chairman, I have to go out into the big, naughty world and find money for the big things," says Meeke. Funding for the museum's new build has come from the Heritage Lottery Fund, English Heritage and the Southall Trust, which provided half the money for the new building housing a second world war exhibition.
"Entrance fees are currently a modest £3, but rising oil prices will necessitate a rise for the days that the museum is in steam in 2009. The site is owned by Dwr Cymru Welsh Water, which has given Waterworks a 99-year lease. "They are incredibly helpful behind the scenes, and they have made a major cash contribution to the site," says Meeke.
Visitors
4,000 a year.
Survival tip
"It's essential for us to have someone who is good at drawing up fundraising applications." Meeke, as a former academic, has plenty of experience.
Highlight
Visitors from all over the world make a beeline for the triple-expansion engine and its associated Lancashire boiler, Meeke says.
"Latterly, they've been visiting the new building devoted to Hereford during the second world war where we have a Blackstone five-cylinder engine, restored to working order. It was used for fire fighting at a Hereford munitions factory during the war. We're not a museum that normally does exhibitions - we let our engines speak for themselves - but this is our first permanent one."
Sticky moment
"There are occasions when a major engine or boiler misbehaves before a big event," says Meeke. "Our engines need a lot of tender, loving care. Luckily, we have the engineering expertise to provide it."
Current project
The Waterworks has just received an "absolutely massive" water pump that supplied Brighton from 1935 to recent times. It will be exhibited externally, all 15 feet and 10 tons of it.
www.waterworksmuseum.org.uk