British Engineerium Open Day - January 6th

Along with a couple of acquaintances of mine we’d been asked to arrange to display some cars for the third Open Day of the British Engineerium.

But first a little history about what was originally the Brighton, Hove and Preston Waterworks Company founded in 1834 by an Act of Parliament. After a name change it was bought by Brighton Corporation in 1872. 

By this time it was pumping 2.6 million gallons of water per day or 100,000 gallons per hour! 

But 100 years later in 1971 the Goldstone Pumping Station as it was then known was considered outdated and was replaced by a small electric version.

Jonathan Minns, a steam expert, along with a number of other volunteers started the restoration of the Engineerium. But despite a lot of fund-raising and a couple of royal visits there were ongoing funding problems and in 2006 it was put up for auction.

I remember this well as I looked at the Bonhams catalogue but the more I looked, the more I realised that I shouldn’t go along to the auction as there were about ten lots which I wanted to buy. I needn’t have worried because half-an-hour before the auction was due to start Mike Holland bought EVERYTHING.

Mike has spent a lot of time and money restoring the buildings and this Open Day was a precursor to the hopeful eventual opening of the British Engineerium full time.

The Open Day was on a Sunday and they had started to fire up the boiler three days previously.

On the day about thirteen or fourteen Ringmer Multimarques cars turned up as well as some Classic ‘50s/‘60s American cars, a dozen British bikes, some of Nick Spice’s cars as well as some military vehicles.

Inside the British Engineerium

In those days we had an Empire and engineers we could be proud of.

The boiler which has been fired up is at the far end of the photo to the right.

In addition to the 20 to 25 cars which turned up there were probably about three hundred to five hundred people there, including a lot of very well-behaved children! 

Mike Holland has been very careful to involve local schools as well as making the ticket prices very family friendly. You can find out more details of the British Engineerium here... 

http://www.britishengineerium.org

Outside the British Engineerium

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