The Totnes atmospheric railway pumping station - Date/Photographer unknown.

14 March 2008

Brunel Pumping Station Saved from Demolition

A pumping station from an innovative railway built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel has been listed Grade II after a campaign to save it from demolition championed by Jeremy Clarkson.
 
The "Top Gear" presenter, whose advocacy of the engineer won him a close second to Sir Winston Churchill in the BBC's Great Britons series, got involved after the company Dairy Crest proposed to level the building in Totnes, Devon, for a housing development.
 
A rare survival of a building designed by the great engineer, the pumping house was to have provided the power for Brunel's South Devon Atmospheric Railway. Trains drawn along by a piston in a tube laid between the rails.
 
Air was evacuated from the tube by a system of pumping stations along the route from Exeter to Plymouth. There were to have been eight pumping stations in all. The Totnes pumping station was never fitted out with a steam engine, though boilers were installed.
 
The line functioned atmospherically between Exeter and Newton Abbott between 1846 and 1848. However, serious problems befell the project due to air leaks, water getting into the pipes, and faults with equipment.
 
It was abandoned and replaced by locomotive power and the South Devon Railway became part of the Great Western Railway in 1878. The building became part of a milk processing factory in 1934, a use that continued until 2007.
 
Other remaining pumping stations at Starcross and Torre are listed as Grade I and II* respectively.
 
The citation letter from the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport says the pumping house is a rare survival among the small number of buildings associated with the railway and that it is a reminder of the dramatic changes in mid-19th century transport and science.
 
Also, it says Brunel's use of the rustic Italianate style reflects the Mediterranean qualities of the South Devon coastal landscape and contributes to its modern perception as part of the "English Riviera."
 
The listing means that Dairy Crest will have to apply to the local authority for permission to demolish, if that remains their intention.
 
Conservationists applauded Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary, for deciding to list the building against the advice of English Heritage. Adam Wilkinson, secretary of SAVE Britain's heritage, said:  "The Secretary of State has clearly seen sense and listed a rare survival from one of the more exotic chapters of our industrial, architectural, and transport history."
 
"Dairy Crest must now see the value of this building and work with the people of Totnes to come up with a scheme which makes use of Brunel's pumping station."
 
Charles Clover.