Home > Derbyshire Events > Leawood Pumphouse, Cromford

Photographs of Leawood Pumphouse &
the Cromford Canal in Cromford,
Derbyshire, England

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Leawood Pumphouse, Cromford Canal


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• Photos of Leawood Pumphouse, Cromford, Derbyshire
Leawood Pumphouse is a stationary steam pumping engine built in 1849. It is a very impressive thing to see it in action, I would highly recommend you make a visit when it is in steam.
For more details please see HERE.

You can watch a video of Leawood pump engine in action which I made if you have broadband internet.
You can also take a 360 degree look around next to the Cromford Canal.

The Leawood pumphouse can be seen "in steam" on selected weekends, To find out when the next one is please visit their "what's on" section on their website HERE.

Admission to Leawood Pump is free but donations towards the running costs are gratefully received as it costs £200 a day just in coal on steam days.

The best place to park is at High Peak Junction then walk over the river bridge then past the Sewage works and upto the high peak junction visitor centre. Here you need to turn left and follow the towpath of the Cromford canal, You will see Leawood pump on your left side.

The Cromford Canal Company was formed by an act of Parliament on 24th of August 1789, it had from monies raised (£46,000) to cut the Canal and fill it with water.
The Canal operated successfully for a further fifty one years, 1844 was a dry year, the Canal suffered a severe lack of water, the normal supply from the Cromford and Bonsall soughs had been supplying less water due to the Merebrook sough removing water from the lead mines at a level below the Canal. By the autumn of that year the situation was so serious that a pump was hired and installed by the end of November to take water from the river Derwent.

In late 1849 the Leawood Pumphouse became operational and pumped water from the River Derwent to the Cromford Canal for the first time since its conception in 1844.
The objective of the pumping engine was to maintain a level of water suitable to keep Canal traffic flowing, the Cromford Canal has a flight of fourteen locks connecting it to the Erewash Canal at Langley Mill Basin, each time a boat enters or leaves the Cromford Canal it takes a lock full of water into the Erewash Canal which needs to be replaced. Also all Canals leak, but even this does not explain the sheer scale of the engine, if water could be taken out of the River Derwent regularly then why was such a large engine needed and why was it built 13 miles away from the nearest lock ? The answer to these questions lies with the significance of the industry on the River Derwent, water which powered the cotton mills was protected by an act of Parliament, so anyone wishing to extract upstream of the mills had to comply to strict conditions with a heavy financial penalty if they failed to do so.

The conditions were that water could only be removed from the Derwent between the hours of 8 p.m. on Saturdays to 8 p.m. on Sundays and no more than one twentieth of the flow of the river in any period of that time, and none at all if the flow was less than 570 tons per minute. The flow was measured at the weir behind Masson Mill, Matlock Bath.
With such restrictions it can be seen that if you wish to maintain a level of water in the Canal but can only voluntarily fill for one 24 hour period in a week then a substantial amount of water will need to be pumped, this explains the size of the engine as it is capable of pumping almost four tons of water per stroke and seven strokes a minute, a total of over 39,000 tons of water per 24 hours.



Photo Description : Leawood pumphouse
Image Reference No. : DP-2607202LEAWOODPMP-01
Date photo taken : 26th July 2002
Exact Map Location : Click HERE
Other Information : This is Leawood pumphouse viewed from the towpath of the Cromford canal.
Photo Description : Leawood pumphouse from side
Image Reference No. : DP-2607202LEAWOODPMP-02
Date photo taken : 26th July 2002
Other Information : This is Leawood pumphouse viewed from the other side of the Cromford canal, where the sluice for the canal is located.
Photo Description : A Boiler in the Leawood pump boiler house.
Image Reference No. : DP-030602LEAWOODPMP-03
Date photo taken : 3rd June 2002
Other Information : This is one of two boilers located in the neighboring Boiler Houseroom of Leawood pumphouse. The Steam is produced by two locomotive type boilers, the boilers were built by the Midland Railway Company in 1900 and can produce steam at 40 P.S.I.
Photo Description : Leawood pump pipework
Image Reference No. : DP-030602LEAWOODPMP-04
Date photo taken : 3rd June 2002
Other Information : This is the complicated pipework and control rods which control the sequence of the valves which make this engine function.

Photo Description : The beam in the down position
Image Reference No. : DP-030602LEAWOODPMP-05
Date photo taken : 3rd June 2002
Other Information : This shows the beam in the down positon. The beam consists of two 33 foot castings, side by side. Together they weigh 27 Tons. This really is an impressive site when it is moving.
Photo Description : The beam in motion
Image Reference No. : DP-030602LEAWOODPMP-06
Date photo taken : 3rd June 2002
Other Information : This shows the beam in the up positon.
If you compare this photo with the one above you can see just how much this massive beam moves.
Photo Description : The plunger in motion
Image Reference No. : DP-030602LEAWOODPMP-07
Date photo taken : 3rd June 2002
Other Information : This shows the plunger in its up postion. At this point the chamber below it contains water, and when it is pushed down it will eject that water via the output pipe into the Cromford canal.
You can see the water entering the canal near the pumphouse.




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