the engine in the mine
Lathkill Dale, only a few miles from Two Dales, was ruined as a result of extensive lead mining. Relics of that industry abound in what is now one of the most beautiful valleys in Derbyshire. One of the most curious of these relics is Bateman's House - a house built over an unusually wide mineshaft and with a second shaft just outside the original building. The house was once occupied by the mine agent and his family.
Water ingress has always been a serious problem for the lead miners of the Peak District. Over the centuries the problem has been mitigated to some extent by the digging of soughs (a drainage tunnel) and pumps, the latter often used to lift water from lower levels up to the sough. But pumps need something to drive them and all sorts of solutions have been tried from water wheels (not always feasible) to steam engines (ruinously expensive - literally in some cases).
Despite the failure of the Dakeynes to deliver a disc engine to a neighbouring mine after two years of promises, Bateman and Alsop, owners of the Lathkill Dale Mining Co., ordered an engine from them in 1831. The following year it was reported that this engine was under construction at Two Dales. It was quite massive - the sphere was 6ft diameter and the casing 10ft. With a 66ft head it was expected to deliver 144hp.*
It is hardly surprising that historians have made the link between the disc engine and Bateman's House, - the latter is on the site of the Lathkill Dale mine - but building a house over a mineshaft did not make sense, and certainly there was no evidence the engine ever ran there.
* History and Gazetteer of the County of Derby. Glover. 1833
Water ingress has always been a serious problem for the lead miners of the Peak District. Over the centuries the problem has been mitigated to some extent by the digging of soughs (a drainage tunnel) and pumps, the latter often used to lift water from lower levels up to the sough. But pumps need something to drive them and all sorts of solutions have been tried from water wheels (not always feasible) to steam engines (ruinously expensive - literally in some cases).
Despite the failure of the Dakeynes to deliver a disc engine to a neighbouring mine after two years of promises, Bateman and Alsop, owners of the Lathkill Dale Mining Co., ordered an engine from them in 1831. The following year it was reported that this engine was under construction at Two Dales. It was quite massive - the sphere was 6ft diameter and the casing 10ft. With a 66ft head it was expected to deliver 144hp.*
It is hardly surprising that historians have made the link between the disc engine and Bateman's House, - the latter is on the site of the Lathkill Dale mine - but building a house over a mineshaft did not make sense, and certainly there was no evidence the engine ever ran there.
* History and Gazetteer of the County of Derby. Glover. 1833
Bateman's House photographed in 1950
This Bateman was not the partner in the mine but a mine agent (manager) appointed in 1835. The long lintel beneath the upper windows is a clue to the real purpose of the building.
But the house was not built for residential use. It was for the disc engine and it simply replicated the engine house for the Romping Lion in Two Dales. The primary purpose of these houses was to provide a lifting structure to erect the engine, the components of which can weigh many tons. The massive beam engines of the day used the same method. And, if proof were needed, the extremely long lintel in the photo above was there to support the wall above a opening which is the width of the engine casing.
Diagrammatic section through the mine
It will be seen that the second shaft was required for the pumps and there was a cross shaft for the drive from
the engine the pump cranks.The water was pumped from the workings up to sough level.
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It will be seen that the second shaft was required for the pumps and there was a cross shaft for the drive from
the engine the pump cranks.The water was pumped from the workings up to sough level.
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That does not of course prove the engine was ever installed let alone run. However a letter to the "Mechanics Magazine" in 1833 claimed that the author, "Galena" had seen the engine run. As an aside he commented on a "little leakage being of no consequence" - highly probable! But it is the drawing that he enclosed with his letter, shown on the left which is very significant.It shows a bevel gear drive on the top of the engine. None of the drawings accompanying the patent show anything other than a spur gear. And other than those drawings there are no other drawings of the engine made at the time or later. And of course bevel gearing would be necessary to transmit the drive to the pump shaft.
Furthermore scaling this drawing against a site survey shows the height of the horizontal drive shaft matches the actual height of the tunnel between the two shafts. There is no doubt the engine was there.
Galena's drawing of the Lathkill engine
Furthermore scaling this drawing against a site survey shows the height of the horizontal drive shaft matches the actual height of the tunnel between the two shafts. There is no doubt the engine was there.
Galena's drawing of the Lathkill engine
To get water to the engine the Dakeynes adapted what they had done in Ladygrove. They built a shallow dam wall across the River Lathkill to divert the water into a goit which at the engine house gave the 66ft design head. It was this goit that was their biggest contribution to extracting lead at the mine. After two years the engine still did not work and was replaced by a giant water wheel of 52ft diameter. The goit coupled with the sinking of of the wheel into a pit gave the massive head required.
And the house? With no further use as an engine house, Bateman saw no reason why he should not convert it for his family. By 1842 large scale mining ceased and the house was empty
Why did the mine owners choose to install an engine of unproven design? The goit and the workings in the Lathkill mine were shallow and not deep enough to install the long hydraulic reciprocating pumps used with great success at nearby Alport. The cost of a steam engine was not justified and nobody had thought of a goit along the valley to raise the head for a water wheel.
And why did the engine fail? There are two possibilities. The Dakeynes may have seriously under-estimated the river flow. After all, they were attempting to get four times the power with one third of the head which requires six times the flow through the original engine. And to achieve this they may have altered the overall configuration of the engine - the drawing above shows a much more squat design. This could have materially altered the performance.
Nobody knows what happened to the engine. It must have been taken out and scrapped. This was the last known Dakeyne engine. Another engine was planned - to power an organ in their eldest brother's ballroom at Knabb House. Whether it was ever completed is not known but it is rumoured that it was destroyed in a fire at the end of the nineteenth century. The finding of some gears in the garden fifty years later might give this story some credence.
But a new era was about to dawn.
Nobody knows what happened to the engine. It must have been taken out and scrapped. This was the last known Dakeyne engine. Another engine was planned - to power an organ in their eldest brother's ballroom at Knabb House. Whether it was ever completed is not known but it is rumoured that it was destroyed in a fire at the end of the nineteenth century. The finding of some gears in the garden fifty years later might give this story some credence.
But a new era was about to dawn.
