Well Well revisited

I have now opened up the well in the back yard and ordered a pump. The trouble was the well had a deck 8m down supporting an old pump with no way a new pump could be lowered into the water from above. It seems it was complete luck that my original weight on a string found its way through a small crack to the water when I dangled it down through the little hole I first drilled.

So the old pump had to come out. Luckily the pumping mechanism was still partially intact with a steel rod reaching almost to the surface, as in.

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A Rope was attached to this and to the Land Rover
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by pulling on the rope, then clamping the rod off to re position the rope a few times the old pump came to the surface. You can see in this picture the rod rising up. Now at one point with the pump almost out of the well disaster nearly struck as the pull rope broke when the pump got caught up on an obstruction. Luckily I had thought of this and had a second rope secured already as back up. The upside was that the old pump crashing 30 feet smashed a big hole in the deck so now its very easy to get the new pump in.

The pump was finally manhandled out, but boy is this thing and the 18 feet of 2 inch steel pipe below it along with all the crap attached to it heavy. My son and I struggled with that stage. Here it is for all to see.

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and

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I am now wondering what age this contraption can be. I am assured that when our house was built mains water was available so no need for a well. It must therefore have been installed for the old hall in the grounds of which our house was built. Anyone have any idea how old the pump might be from the picture? Interestingly it still works, and the bronze (or whatever its made from) bolts undo easily as does the gland nut. Also of interest to me is that although the bolts appear the same size all the heads vary a bit in size, hand made perhaps? Sadly I can't find a date or manufacturers mark anywhere. I shall clean it up a bit and post another picture.

Mike

Reply to
Muddymike
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I once dug a horseshoe up in my garden !

Reply to
Ash

I saw this on free.uk.diy.home and have x-posted it to uk.d-i-y

Mike.

Anyone with that in their back garden deserves the post to be seen by a larger audience.

Adam

Reply to
ARWadsworth

Reply to
ARWadsworth

Beautiful! :-)

We've got an old well-house out back and the visible part of the pit goes down about 3m - to decades-old debris that's just been thrown down there over the years.

It's on the to-do list to go digging and see how far down it goes at some point, when I can motivate myself; I really don't know at the moment if the debris layer is shallow and will just uncover an old well-head, or if it's several metres thick...

cheers

Jules

Reply to
Jules

A cracking piece of kit, that. Can't you reinstate it, rather than use a modern pump?

Steve

Reply to
shazzbat

On Fri, 1 May 2009 20:14:12 +0100, a certain chimpanzee, "Ash" randomly hit a keyboard and produced:

With or without a horse attached?

Reply to
Hugo Nebula

... managed to dig it up all by myself ... never needed a horse.

Reply to
Ash

I did concider reinstating it, but after a little thought about pumping a handle up and down all the time I want water, or simply flicking a switch, the switch won and I have bought a neat little electric job on Ebay.

Mike

Reply to
Muddymike

Have you ever thought that someone in Australia is wondering why their garden fountain has stopped working?

Reply to
Ash

Mike,

It's been bothering me because I'm _convinced_ I've seen a pump like that before.

I'm going to try something odd. I've x-posted this to a couple of railway groups, in the hope that someone there will know somewhere else where someone might know - IYSWIM. I looked for a traction engine group

- they often have relationships with agricultural machinery - but can't find one.

Mikes Picture:

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Andy

Reply to
Andy Champ

Reminds me of one of those American Wind Pumps ...

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Reply to
Ash

It looks like an old mining pump to me, do you live in a mining area?

There's a chap called Simon Hughes who might be quite knowledgeable about things like this, he used to live in a village near Aberystwyth called Talybont. There are a lot of lead mines in that area and he was a prominent mine person, in fact I think he set up his own firm. You might do a search for his name in conjunction with Lead Mines in Mid Wales area.

Hope this helps

Don

Reply to
Donwill

I've tried to find a link to Simon J Hughes but failed to get a direct one, however you might be able to contact him through this site which refers to one of his many publications.

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Regards

Don

Reply to
Donwill

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