Tour Scotland Video Beam Engine Prestongrange Museum East Lothian

Tour Scotland video of the old Beam Engine on visit to Prestongrange Museum, East Lothian, Scotland. The beam engine is a Cornish engine, an early type of steam engine, used to pump water from the coal mine to prevent the workings from becoming flooded. It was manufactured by J. E. Mare & Company of Plymouth, England, to the design of engineers Hocking & Loam and used in three different mines in Cornwall before being purchased by the Prestongrange Coal and Iron Company in 1874 and shipped north. It was bought from a Cornish Mine site by Harvey and Company of Hayle, who sold it on to Prestongrange complete with a new beam of their own manufacture. The engine was installed in a new engine house, whose front wall is nearly 7 feet thick in order to support the main pivot bearing of the huge cast iron beam. The engine continued operating until 1954, when it was superseded by electric pumps, only eight years before the colliery closed. The engine is the only example in Scotland

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