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 Monday evening (14th August 2017) there will be the August 2017 Public Meeting of the Lichfield Waterworks Trust charity, formerly the Friends of Sandfields Pumping Station group.

The meeting is at the Bowling Green pub, Lichfield from 7:30pm and is of course open to anyone interested.

Dave wrote:

Lichfield Waterworks Trust News Letter

The next public meeting of Lichfield Waterworks Trust will take place on Monday 14 August at 7.30pm, in the rear meeting room of:

The Bowling Green
Friary Road
Lichfield
Staffordshire
WS13 6QJ

Tel: 01543 257344

The Bowling Green serves some great food and real ales.

This is an incredibly exciting community heritage project, so do come along and become involved, we make everyone welcome.

Agenda

Notes of the respective reports and meeting notes are in the link below

Apologies.
Notes of the June 2016 Meeting are here
Matters Arising.

News

Persimmon Homes ltd have granted an extension of the licence for a further six months. This is good news as it gives the trust time to conduct the viability study and also shows that Persimmon are comfortable with the work we are doing.

The work groups are continuing with their sterling work on the building and the engine. A promising start indeed. It is really helpful that we carefully set aside, record and research each of the item in the pumping station now, as this builds a details picture of the past activity’s.

Even the small items that appear insignificant can help build a richer picture of the past history of the site. By doing this, we remove the need to make assumptions and fill in gaps in our knowledge, something we see all too often in heritage sites. Capturing these details now, we leave a trail and a record of events will help future generation gain a fuller understanding of the past events.

Work cleaning the engine is showing some remarkable progress as a reward for a lot of hard and dirty work. We are always looking for more volunteers to help with this work. Onsite training and safety induction will be provided.

The bid team are working hard to put together a grant application for a feasibility study and have now submitted a first draft. Real progress is now being made.

The aim and objective of this study is to develop and produce a sustainable business plan to demonstrate that as a trust we are capable of managing this site in a business-like manner that clearly outlines how we will deliver an ongoing programme of funding, maintenance and renovation of the site. We will also outline how we will make it accessible, preserve the heritage and give benefit to the community in perpetuity.

We have just commenced a Heritage Lottery Fund Resilient Heritage Grant application. Resilient Heritage is a grant that will help and support the trust in becoming more sustainable organisation, help us improve our skills in maintaining the heritage and support us with our community engagement.

Florette Festival Market

We had a stand at the Florette Festival Market 8/9 July. John Child bought his replica Newcomen Beam engine, it was the star attraction. John came last year and his hand built beam engine was quite an eye catcher that aroused a lot of interest. John is an amazing guy who has driven the giant Cornish beam engine at the Museum of water in London. He is a long-term supporter of the work we are doing at Sandfields Pumping station.

Events like this are a great opportunity to show people the valuable work we do in the community, and is an opportunity to engage with the public and share our story with them

Here is a film of John’s beam Engine working

Forthcoming Events
Member Visits to Sandfields Pumping Station

To date, access to the pumping station has been quite restrictive. We know a lot of our members have not seen inside the pumping Station yet, so we are about to rectify this.

We are in a position to take three visitors around Sandfields every Friday morning between 11:00am and 12:00 noon. The visits be pre-booked and is open to members only. If you are not yet a member, then please consider joining us at this link.

Members will be given an event password in a separate email.

To book a visit, please go to our Eventbrite booking page here.

Huddlesford Gathering

Huddlesford Gathering is on the weekend of 23/24 September, we have kindly been invited to have a stand and are therefore looking for volunteers to meet and greet visitors.

Can you help?

If you enjoy meeting people and can spare a couple of houses on either of these days, please get in touch.

Health and Safety

We know people have mixed views about Health and Safety, however we have a very clear view about our members. We think you are incredible and value the work you do; therefore, we want to keep you safe.

We have an amazing health and safety manager, Phil Bowers, who has a very practical no nonsense hands on approach to health and safety.

We like to keep things simple and want our members not to feel daunted by health and safety regulations. We will walk you though the process and give you practical hands on training at a pace set by you.

To date 20 people have received site induction. Those who wish to volunteer on site please let Phil know.

Membership

It would really help us if we develop and grow our membership. If you are not already a member and would you like to be a part of one of the region’s most exciting heritage projects then please, join us now by filling in Membership Application Form by going to our membership page here. It is free to join and be a part of this incredibly exciting project.

Donations 

We have incurred some considerable expenditure covering legal costs, insurance and training. We will always invest in our people, and we are planning further training days soon too. All these costs soon mount up, so if you can donate, then please visit our donation page here, any amount is helpful and well appreciated.

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

Finally

Thank you everyone for your continued support and helping to make a difference in your community.

We never share your data with anyone else, but we do like to have your details correct. If there are any errors or omissions, please let us know. Our data protection policy is here.

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.