Sandfields Pumping Station – a great historic building with immense history and social significance – not just to Lichfield, but to the Black Country. Lichfield Discovered and local historian Dave Moore have saved this valuable asset for the community.

Sandfields Pumping Station champion and public historian extraordinaire Dave Moore has been in touch to let me know that this Thursday evening (25th August 2016) there will be a public progress meeting for the Lichfield Waterworks Trust charity, formerly the Friends of Sandfields Pumping Station group.

Its worth noting The Trust have announced that they had been successful in securing the building for the future as revealed here last year.

Note the return to the usual venue – the meeting takes place at the George IV, Bore Street, Lichfield from 7:30-9pm.

Dave wrote:

Dear BrownhillsBob,

The next monthly progress meeting of the Lichfield Waterworks Trust will take place on:

Thursday 25 August 2016 at 7.30pm, in the rear meeting room of the

George lV
Bore St
Lichfield
WS13 6LU

Tel: 01543 523025

July Meeting notes can be downloaded here

Full Steam Ahead, Steady as She Goes.

The trust is now in negations with persimmon Home Ltd where we are working jointly to prepare and agree a licence for access to undertake a site investigation/assessment study that will last six months. We have asked that as part of the licence agreement, we will open Sandfields Pumping Station for 3 hours a week to allow supervised visits by member of the trust.

We see the issue of this licence as the first stage of an ongoing process to hand back Sandfields Pumping Station to the public, and a significant step towards protecting this unique piece of our industrial heritage.

The draft licence is now complete and has been returned to Persimmon Homes Ltd for their approval.

The trust is also very busy preparing a bid for a Resilient Heritage Grant. The Resilient Heritage Grant will enable the trust to commission a specialist engineering company to conduct a feasibility study on the 190 HP Cornish Beam Engine with a view of returning the engine to steam operation again.

The Resilient Heritage Grant will also be used to fund some training for members of the trust, so that we can allow access to the building to the public.

The trust is now looking for volunteer building supervisors to conduct organised visits to the pumping station. If you would like to become a building supervisor, please let us know. Full training will be given free of charge and we will issue a certificate of competence.

This is an incredibly exciting project, and we would like everyone to become a part of it, so please consider joining the Lichfield Waterworks Trust by clicking the membership link here.

Online membership application form

Membership is free, but a small donation would always be very much appreciated. We have an enormous amount of expenditure coming up with the legal fees relating to the access licence, so any amount, however small, will be most welcome.

You can donate either at our online donation link here.

Link to our donation page of our website

You can also do a direct bank transfer:

Bank Details:

HSBC Bank
Account Name: Lichfield Waterworks Trust
Sort Code: 40-28-18
Account Number: 02050722

or

Please make cheques payable to; Lichfield Waterworks Trust, and send to our address:

22 Walsall Road
Lichfield
WS13 8AB

Do pop over to Dave Moore’s blog and check out the history of Sandfields Pumping Station, an almost forgotten gem – the group also has a Facebook page.

Dave is, of course, one of the leading lights of Lichfield Discovered, along with Kate ‘Cardigan’ Gomez from Lichfield Lore.

It’s great to see people like Dave encourage a better attitude to our historic buildings, rather than that which we seem to have here in Walsall, where we regard heritage architecture as merely ‘fuel’.

Please do attend if you’re able, it’s sure to be enlightening and educational.