Manky Monkey Motors

Sunday afternoon. Nothing to do. Drizzly & cold outside. Bored.
Time to jump in the car & just drive somewhere at random & see what crops up -a habit I've developed over the last couple of years as a single bloke. No reason I can't just go wherever the hell I feel like.
Which is why I came to be in South East London, drifting aimlessly along in the car, looking for a sign. I found one -it said London Museum of Water & Steam. That'll do. Just off Kew Bridge there's a huge chimney, rising above the city buildings. I've passed it a million times & never known what it was. Turns out it's part of the old Victorian water pumping station that supplied water to the houses & sewers of that corner of London.
If you're partial to a bit of steam, architecture & a time when everything, even sewage pump houses, were built & maintained with so much more elegance & style, you'll love this place.
A few snaps of a very pleasant afternoon out.

The sign's made from sections of modern plastic water pipe.

Very nice café -I recommend the hot soup & crusty bread.

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Victorian oak floorboards repaired with a lump of tree -you can see the knobbly branch ends sticking up.

The main pump room housed 3 or 4 assorted steam driven engines, which were being run one after the other all day. Heaven for lovers of hot oil & steam.

Lots of hands on educational stuff for the kids, with displays of pistons & valves made of transparent plastic tubes filled with coloured water for them to experiment with, colouring & drawing equipment, Victorian dressing up areas & a steam train ride around the yard.

One wall of the entrance hall was filled with a display of antique & modern household items -sadly, I remembered a lot of them.

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The main building has 4 or 5 floors full of pistons, flywheels, beams & valves. Lovely.

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Free to wander wherever you like, no-one to tell you you can't touch this or that, just a couple of guys in boiler suits carrying mugs of tea & squirty oil cans.

The building had a central staircase, with rooms off on either side, housing 2 massive beam engines, with their shafts passing up through the floors & ceilings. Up in the attic rooms were the beams themselves. 

The Chimney, actually isn't a Chimney,its a Victorian standpipe tower. Its got vertical pipes inside the water was pumped up this before it entered the mains system. I used to pass this twice a day when it was derelict on my to see missus Baychimp. She was still a miss then.

Yeah, I learnt that while I was there -not about Mrs BC, the chimanee.

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Proper chaps.

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Did you know water pipes used to made from wood? I didn't. Tree trunks bored all the way through with a steam driven auger.
The glass panel in the floor on the left lets you see the Thames flowing beneath the building.

A chap, in his natural habitat.

Told you I learnt that.  :)

More hands on educational stuff outside, including this beautifully built stainless steel explanation of Archimedes screws, waterwheels & valves. How long did that take someone to construct?

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Look at the way that double arch frames the window behind it. Beautiful.

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Mock-up of a sewer, with an image of flowing water projected onto the floor, complete with swimming eels & crayfish. Quite surreal.

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Its great to see how much work they have done,and how much its changed. But the whole area is different now a lot more residential. next door used to be all town gas holders and across the road in what is now a riverside park was the gas company. It was all very industrial,now its a Yuppys paradise.

Yeah, they're building a new development of flats right next door. I saw photos of the gas storage tanks.
I was there on a drizzly day in early March -there were maybe 2 dozen people in the whole place, so I could wander around at my leisure. I'm sure it gets a lot busier in the Summer & judging from the educational exhibits, probably gets a lot of school trips & foreign students. Entry was something like a tenner, (I paid by card & didn't actually pay attention to the price), but parking was free, though only room for about 20 cars. Nice little café with proper home made food & a nice cup of tea. I could happily have stayed there all day, just watching the engines turning. I thoroughly enjoyed it -one of those hidden little gems that are all over the place in London. Well worth a visit if you're in the big city.
Nice pub next door too.  :)

There used to be two more pubs across the road, but sadly both knocked down now. Just up the road from there if you head towards Brentford is the The Musical Museum. It houses one of the best collections of self playing musical instruments in the world.

Yup, that one's on my list for a future rainy day.

Is this why eating eels or crayfish is not really a good idea. I expected you to mention more than that floating along!  :-X

Was the main beam engine in steam?  I can remember watching one of the chaps in boiler suits working hard with levers and valves to get the thing going first thing in the morning, it is quite a task, but sounds luvverly when standing in the vicinity of the condensing cylinder. As you say one of the little jewels of London.

Another worth a visit is the steam room in Tower Bridge.

Visited the Kew pumping station about 11 years ago (when I had to 'kidnap' my mate Dslam so his better half could organise a 'surprise' party), brilliant place, loads to see, including the huge beam engine.

Recommended viewing  ;)

http://www.steamandcountrycam.co.uk/photo-detail/kew-bridge-pumping-station-and-british-engineerium-31-01-2011/opus/111/

No, the main beam wasn't running, but all the smaller ones were. Real poetry in motion.
I went along to one of the Kempton steam days last year. Another building I've passed a million times, but didn't know what was inside it until I visited. Well worth checking out.

Went there a few years ago, brilliant  ;D

http://www.kemptonsteam.org/

Here is the 2016 Events Listing http://www.kemptonsteam.org/visit-us/opening-times/