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 (11th September 2017) there will be the September 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 September News Letter

The next public meeting of Lichfield Waterworks Trust will take place on:

Monday 11 September at 7.30pm, in the rear meeting room of the

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.

Notes of the August 2016 Meeting are here

News

There have been a number of attempts by vandals trying to gain unauthorised access to the building and unfortunately, they were successful on one occasion. They emptied washing up liquid on the staircases and emptied out any containers of sugar, bleach and cleaning liquid on the floors. Fortunately, the Friday working Team soon made quick work of the mess and we feel we are back to normal operation now.

Many thanks to the Friday team.

Persimmon Homes ltd have arrange to improve the security on the 1960’s building.

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.

Work cleaning the engine is to show 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 our application. The Architectural Heritage Fund Support Officer has raised a few questions about our application. The bid team are working on a response.

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.

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 able 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.

Heritage Weekend

Please let me know if you can fill any of the following slots.

Sat 23 September

11am to 1300               Water walk marshal
11am to 12 midday     Erect gazebo at Sandfields
12 to 1.30pm                Man gazebo, and marshal at Sandfields site
1.30pm to 3pm            Man gazebo and marshal at Sandfields site
3pm to 3,30pm           Dismantle gazebo   

Provide simple refreshments

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.

Sun 24 September

9am                              Transport gazebo to Huddlesford Junction
9.30 am to 10am       Erect gazebo
10am to 1130am        Man stall
1130am to 1300         Man stall
1300 to 1430              Man stall
1430 to 1600              Man stall
1600 to 1700              Dismantle gazebo and transport back

 Sat 14 October

1100 to 1130               Walk in L2F procession, Lichfield city centre

 Your support would be much appreciated.  Bowler hats and hi vis vests provided!

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 are really pleased to report that there have been no incidents relating to health and safety. A very big thank you to everyone for working safely.

Good safety is no accident.

Membership

We would like this opportunity to welcome a few new members.

Thank you for joining the Lichfield Waterworks Trust. We hope you will enjoy your membership and become part of a very exciting heritage project that will benefit the people, the place and the community.

If you wish to visit Sandfields Pumping Station then please use the links below.

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

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.

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.

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.