Hydraulic Pumping Station

Hydraulic Pumping Station East of Canning Half-Tide Dock (The Pumphouse Inn)
Circa 1870
Grade II

Little is known, and nothing survives, of the hydraulic power supply to the warehouses prior to modernisation of the system by G. F. Lyster, Hartley's successor, in the late 1870s.

This 1878 pumphouse is in the characteristically elaborate mixture of common brick, pressed brick, sandstone and terra-cotta favoured by Lyster, but probably designed as an 'add-on' to the structure of the building by Arthur Berrington, the long-serving architectural draughtsman in the Dock Yard.

This was an extremely congested part of the Dock Estate, and the site was unwisely chosen, placing a heavy dynamic load within the 'Coulomb prism' of three different retaining walls. 

As a result, by the time restoration and conversion to a public house was undertaken, severe subsidence had taken place and little more than the outer walls of the engine house could be saved.