HIAS Projects

Please note: The Rescue and Restoration Section has been suspended so that no projects are currently being undertaken by HIAS.

Past Projects:

The following give a brief outline of projects that HIAS has been involved in over the years:-

Timsbury             - Water wheel driven water pump

Wheel            - Complete except for touching up paintwork

Weir              - Complete except for capping

Bypass sluice - Made but not installed yet due to high water levels

Wheel sluice  - Complete

Pump            - Reconditioning complete

Pipework      - Some still to be installed

Mills

Members have been involved in various mills projects in conjunction with the Hampshire Mills Group:-

Wherwell Mill      -Turbine installation jammed and partially dismantled

Weed Rack – Installed

Turbine drive to generators - still to be overhauled

Turbine       - requires dismantling and rotor made to rotate

Chilland Mill       -Turbine (electricity generation)

Needs inspecting when water flows permit

Consultancy work ongoing

Durley Mill        - Water wheel requires reconditioning

Water wheel - Sole plates require replacement

Bishopstoke Mill    - Turbines - Display or Electricity Generation

Ongoing consultancy work proceeding

Hockley Mill       - Cracked pit wheel

Pit wheel     - Estimate obtained for stitching  - arrangements to fund repairs under consultation.

Beaulieu Mill      - Repair work after fire

Move mill stones to enable work on hurst frame to proceed

TRAM 57 Project

In 1975 the body of Southampton tram No. 57 was discovered near Romsey. The City Museums decided to acquire it and, in 1977, a support group was set up to restore it. Thus the TRAM 57 Project was born. Two other trams, Nos 11 built in Portswood in 1923 and 38 built in 1903, were located and brought to Southampton in 1979 for restoration in the Group’s workshop in Millbrook. Tram 57 was put in store and later moved to the HCC Museum reserve collection site in 2000. The Millbrook workshop closed in 2003 and trams 11 and 38, plus a Lisbon tram which had been purchased for spares, were placed in storage until the latter half of 2011 when a new workshop was built in Southampton’s Eastern Docks as part of the planned ‘Aeronautica’ heritage project. Visits are by prior arrangement only: please contact Nigel Smith, Project Co-ordinator: 3 Stag Gates, Blackfield, Southampton, SO45 1SR; phone: 023 8089 4729; email:   lnigel.smith@btinternet.com   

Tram 11

Tram 38

The Crux Easton Wind Engine Project

The opening ceremony of the restored Crux Easton Wind Engine was done by Sir George Young on September 25, 2002.  A trust has been formed to continue to run an preserve the wind engine.  More details can be found at http://www.freewebs.com/windengine/corepagerow1col2.htm .

The joint HIAS / Hampshire Mills Group "Heavy Gang" worked in conjunction with the British Engineerium to dismantle an 1892 example of a John Wallis Titt built Wind Engine of the geared type at Crux Easton. This was erected on what was then Lord Caernavron's land to pump water from a 400 ft well. It could also be clutched in to grind grain or drive a circular saw.

Unused since the 1920's it survived the metal collections of the second world war and the great gales in the late 1980's, but was showing its age before the CRUX Easton Wind Engine Conservation Trust obtained grants from the National Lottery, Hampshire County Council and Basingstoke & Deane District Council for its restoration.

Over a week in September, the structure was carefully stripped into its component parts by professionals and amateurs working close together. The Wind Engine was then taken to Hove for restoration.

When this had taken place it was returned to its home at Crux Easton and carefully reassembled by the same team of enthusiasts in full working order for the first time for over 70 years.

There have been a number of interesting "Finds" at the site. In particular, wine bottles bearing the seal of "E.J.Lisle Esq  1723" (He died in 1722). [Or is it because of the calendar change in 1752  the months of January, February & March (up to 25th) in the years 1582-1752 have a double year ? So is the date Julian or Gregorian?

Examples of other wind engines

Wind Engine in Southampton

"A windmill to supply fresh water at the Marchwood Base in Southampton was constructed at the depot. The machine, 16 feet in diameter and supported on a 70 foot high square steel trellis, was purchased from John Wallis Titt's Iron Works in  Warminster in 1873 for the sum of £155. It was in operation by the following year. For the next four years the windmill was in use continuously but it appears to have been the cause of grievance on more than one occasion.

In a letter dated 9th November 1898, Captain Cox complained to the Naval Officer at Portsmouth that for some considerable time the water has not accumulated in the tank to the slightest degree. Only three months later Captain Cox reported, It has been  found almost impossible and extremely dangerous to attempt to stop the windmill from working during a storm or in a gale of wind." (From: Marchwood Yacht Club--History)

Hinton Charterhouse Wind Engine

"By the end of the 19th century there was a need for a better  water supply in the village and Mr. E. T.D.Foxcroft had a ram installed  near Norton Barn to pump up water from a very good spring, The ram had  been built by John Wallis Titt of Warminster and exhibited at the Bath and  West show at Taunton in 1895. It was fetched from Taunton by two men  who charged 52/- to fetch it with a wagon and horses. The journey took two  days each way. "

MOW COP Wind Engine

Mow Cop could once boast it’s own wind operated water-pumping system, the idea being to pump water up to supply the local area and parts of Staffordshire.   The windmill with the waterworks were owned by Kidsgrove Urban District Council who appointed an attendant to live by the pump, to ensure it ran and to do the basic maintenance. On windy days however he would have to climb up the windmill and wedge the wheel, as it would have been damaged, or dislocated.

I was led to believe that the mechanics of the windmill were built in Germany, and a local man, a carpenter and undertaker Mr C.H Hancock, made the fins. However since a Mr Gareth Hughes has pointed out that an identical windmill was built at Bury St Edmunds in 1900 and was copyrighted by a John Willis Titt, of Warminster. 

Extract from http://www.hfstephens-museum.org.uk/the-colonels-topics/wind-and-water.html

"Another British manufacturer  was John Wallis Titt of Warminster, who is known to have supplied windpumps to the Midland, Great Western and London & South Western Railways. L&SWR locations included Amesbury Junction, and a couple of stations on the Basingstoke and Alton Light Railway, including Cliddesden (the windpump can be seen briefly in the Will Hay film, 'O, Mr Porter'). The Basingstoke & Alton examples seem to have been used to supply water to the stations and railway cottages, rather than for locomotive purposes." (From Tom Burnham: Summer 2001 edition of The Tenterden Terrier).

The Éolienne Bollée in Britain

The introduction of a French wind-engine to rural Sussex was due to the foundation of a monastery. Based in Chartres, on the northern  edge of the Beauce, the Carthusian Order customarily employed French architects to build even its overseas Charterhouses. Consequently, French-made wind engines were installed not only in Britain but also in Spain. Auguste Bollée's 1888 catalogue confirms that a large No. 3 Éolienne had been sent to Britain in 1879, presumably when construction work began on the new Charterhouse, and that a small No. 1 had followed in 1881. The former was felled by a gale in the 1960s, the remnants being broken up c. 1984; the latter, however, still stands in its enclosure. Bounded by a wrought-iron fence, the comparatively low ‘3½ unit’ column still has its spiral stairs, balusters and hand rail.  The stairs give  access to the platform that, though its floor plates are now badly wasted, retains the original hand rail and serpentine wrought-iron balusters complete with finials. The turbine and associated control gear are now in relic condition, but sufficient remains to guide restoration.

Power was once transmitted by shafts and bevel gears from the turbine head down through the supporting column, then out horizontally to an intermediate bearing and thence through the wall of the tiny circular pump house. Made Normandy-style of bricks laid radially, lined with limed mortar and roofed conically with graduated slates laid on wooden joists, the pump house is now in poor condition — owing partly to the ravages of time and partly to the malign influence of a large ash tree. However, the pump house has protected the three-throw pump and its brick-lined sump well enough for the machinery to survive in surprisingly good condition.

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