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Description

TF 35 SE OLD LEAKE LADE BANK 2/105 Lade Bank Lock, Pumping Station and Chimney II Lock, pumping station and chimney. 1805 by John Rennie and 1867. Red brick, red and yellow brick, slate roofs with raised stone coped gables and kneelers. Originally consisting of a lock of 4 cutwaters and 2 abutments all of keeled plan with gritstone cappings, with grooves and fixings for lock gates. In 1867 an engine house and pumping station with tall chimney was built above. Single storey, 7 bay front, with plinth, arranged 4:3, the right hand 3 bays being set back and built on arches over the earlier lock. Semi-circular headed windows retain original cast iron glazing bars and have red and yellow banded voussoirs. In the right hand gable are 2 further similar windows and above a blocked circular opening formerly louvred. To left a tall square tapering brick chimney in Italianate style having triple plinth to the base and tall red brick recessed panels to the sides, with yellow brick angles and imposts. Above a dentillated and projecting course are paired similar shorter panels, also with voussoirs. The top of the chimney is corbelled out with moulded bands. On the left hand gable a contemporary wrought iron weather vane. Light cast iron roof trusses throughout. The engine house contained 6 boilers to raise the steam to operate the 2 pumps. The pumping station has been replaced by a modern station of 1938 also partly built on the original lock bases. The 1867 pumping station was built when the shrinking of the peat in the East Fen meant that the fen could no longer be drained by gravity, and the water had to be pumped into the higher southern half of Hobhole Drain. Source: Neil R. Wright. Listing NGR: TF3793354489

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