Abbey Pumping Station Museum

Story

The Abbey Pumping Station is a museum of science and technology in Leicester, England, on Corporation Road, next to the National Space Centre. With four working steam-powered beam engines from its time as a sewage pumping station, it also houses exhibits for transport, public health, light and optics, toys and civil engineering.Sewage pumping stationThe building was constructed in 1891 by Leicester Corporation on the north side of Leicester, alongside the River Soar, as a pumping station used to pump the town's sewage to Beaumont Leys. The grand Victorian building, designed by Stockdale Harrison (Leicester architect) in 1890, houses four Arthur Woolf compound beam engines built by Gimson and Company of Leicester. The first attempt to respond to the population's sewage disposal was in 1850 when piped water made water closets possible, and Thomas Wicksteed designed and built sewers leading to a sedimentation and de-oderisation treatment works on the northern, downstream, edge of the town. Limited capacity and high costs meant that a Pail closet system continued to be used for poorer neighbourhoods. As the town expanded so did the problems of pollution in the River Soar from the treatment works. Disposal of the Night soil from the pail closets, via railway wagons and canal barges, caused complaints of smell and pollution. A new solution was needed and the answer was to pump everything to a Sewage farm on higher ground at Beaumont Leys. It continued pumping Leicester's sewage until 1964, when electric pumps took over, and within a few years the Wanlip Sewage Treatment plant took over and the pumping station was no longer needed.