Goddard & Massey Beam Engine, 1878
A compound rotative beam engine, built in 1878 by Goddard & Massey of Nottingham. It is the largest engine in the museum, with a beam of around 18 ft and a 16 ft diameter flywheel.
It was one of two engines used to pump water from the wells near Clapham Road, Bedford, which formed Bedford’s first public water supply. The engine was in use until 1959.
It was then dismantled, moved and re-erected at Mander College (later Bedford College) in 1965 by students and apprentices of W. H. Allen, Sons & Co. Ltd., Queens Engineering Works, Bedford, with the co-operation of the North Bedfordshire Water Board. It stood on static display in the college grounds for over 40 years.
Rescue and restoration
In 2006 the museum building was extended, which made room for an engine of this size. In August 2010 a museum team dismantled the engine in the college grounds and brought it to Brodsworth on a low loader, in three main pieces: the flywheel with its crankshaft, the beam, and the bedplate with cylinders and columns.
The pistons had seized after years outdoors and were freed using the engine’s own connecting rod as a battering ram. Over the following years the volunteers dug and concreted new foundations, repaired the cracked bedplate, ground the badly corroded crankshaft journal back to a true surface, refitted the cylinders and valve gear, and lifted the beam and parallel motion back into place.
Rather than reconnect it to steam, in 2018 the museum fitted an industrial vacuum exhauster. The engine now runs at just over 4½ rpm as a double-acting “atmospheric engine”, driven by atmospheric pressure on the low pressure piston, much as Newcomen’s engines were 300 years ago.
The full story, with dozens of photographs, is told year by year in the news archive: 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.
The plaque reads: “This steam beam engine, built in 1878 by Goddard and Massey of Nottingham, was one of two original steam engines used to pump water from the wells near Clapham Road, Bedford, which formed Bedford’s first public water supply. The engine was in use until 1959. It was dismantled, moved and re-erected on this site at Mander College in 1965 by students and apprentices of W. H. Allen Sons & Company Ltd., Queens Engineering Works, Bedford, with the co-operation of the North Bedfordshire Water Board.”
Technical details
| Type of Engine | Compound rotative beam engine |
|---|---|
| Builder & Year | Goddard & Massey, Nottingham; 1878 |
| Original use | Pumping water from the wells near Clapham Road, Bedford, for the town’s first public water supply (in use until 1959) |
| Beam | Around 18 ft long |
| Flywheel | 16 ft diameter |
| Cylinder Sizes | High Pressure (HP) piston 19.5 ins. diameter. Further details to follow. |
| Valves | Slide valves on the HP and LP cylinders, with a steam cut-off cam |
| Running today | By vacuum, using an ESAM “Unijet” 500 exhauster with a 7.5 kW electric motor, at just over 4½ rpm |
More information about this engine will be added soon.
Find out more
Video: the initial trial running of the engine, soon after restoration.
The booklet Homing In On The Beam explains the engine in detail, including its recovery from Bedford and restoration. It is on sale in the museum for £2.50 (see the shop).