page_title: Cornish engine
section_title: Preserved Cornish engines
hierarchical_section_title: Cornish engine / Preserved Cornish engines
caption_attribution_description: . . . .without the steam hopefully. Detail of Kew Bridges 90" Cornish engine.
context_page_description: A Cornish engine is a type of steam engine developed in Cornwall, England, mainly for pumping water from a mine. It is a form of beam engine that uses steam at a higher pressure than the earlier engines designed by James Watt. The engines were also used for powering man engines to assist the underground miners' journeys to and from their working levels, for winching materials into and out of the mine, and for powering on-site ore stamping machinery.
context_section_description: Several Cornish engines are preserved in England. The London Museum of Water & Steam has the largest collection of Cornish engines in the world. At Crofton Pumping Station, in Wiltshire are two Cornish engines, one of which (the 1812 Boulton and Watt) is the "oldest working beam engine in the world still in its original engine house and capable of actually doing the job for which it was installed", that of pumping water to the summit pound of the Kennet and Avon Canal. Two examples also survive at the Cornish Mines and Engines museum on the site of East Pool mine near the town of Pool, Cornwall.
  Another example is at Poldark Mine at Trenear, Cornwall - a Harvey of Hayle Cornish Beam Engine from about 1840 - 1850, originally employed at Bunny Tin Mine and later at Greensplat China Clay Pit, both near St Austell. It no longer works as a steam engine but is instead moved by a hydraulic mechanism. In use at Greensplat until 1959, it is the last Cornish engine to have worked commercially in Cornwall. It was moved to Poldark in 1972 []
  The Cruquius pumping station in the Netherlands contains a Cornish engine with the largest diameter cylinder ever built for a Cornish engine, at 3.5 metres (140 inches) diameter. The engine, which was built by Harvey & Co in Hayle, Cornwall, England, has eight beams connected to the one cylinder, each beam driving a single pump. The engine was restored to working order between 1985 and 2000, although it is now operated by an oil-filled hydraulic system, since restoration to steam operation was not viable.
  The Cornish Engines Preservation Committee, an early Industrial Archaeology organisation, was formed in 1935 to preserve the Levant winding engine. The Committee was later re-named for Richard Trevithick. They acquired another winding engine and two pumping engines. They publish a newsletter, a journal and many books on Cornish engines, the mining industry, engineers, and other industrial archaeological topics.
caption: Valve rod of engine at London Museum of Water & Steam
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