Wanlockhead Beam Engine , Scotland

The beam engine and waterbucket pumps were introduced into Wanlockhead in 1745. The history around the beam engine is not certain, but descriptions of similar engines have being recorded on a coal mine at Canonbie, Dumfriesshire in the 1790s. The Wanlockhead Beam Engine was built around the middle of the 19th century and is the only lasting example of a waterbucket pumping engine to be seen on a mine in the UK today.

The beam engine allowed miners to continue working in the Straitsteps mine and based on an assumption of two strokes of the beam per minute this engine would have been able to lift around 7280 litres per hour and could have operated 24 hours a day as it required little monitoring. The wooden bucket was fed from a cistern above and once the weight of water was greater than the water above the pump piston the beam was lifted, carrying water from up to 28 metres below ground into a wood lined culvert which carried it off to the nearby burn.

The Secretary of State for Scotland in 1972 took on the guardianship of the beam engine, making it Scotland's third Industrial Monument.

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