Kempton Park Steam Engines
Encyclopedia
Kempton Park, Surrey
Kempton Park is a locality in the Spelthorne district of Surrey, which is the location of Kempton Park Racecourse.Kempton Park appears on the Middlesex Domesday Map as Chenetone. It was held by Robert, Count of Mortain...
waterworks, Middlesex
Middlesex
Middlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...
, London. Each engine is of a similar size to that used in RMS Titanic and rated at about 1008 hp. They each pumped 19 million gallons of water a day, to supply north London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
with drinking water taken from the River Thames
River Thames
The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...
. They were the last working survivors when they were finally retired from service in 1980.
The engines are of an inverted vertical triple-expansion type, 62 feet (18.9 m) tall from basement to the top of the valve casings and each weighing over 800 tons. The engines are thought to be the biggest ever built in the UK.
One of the engines, called The Sir William Prescott
Sir William Prescott, 1st Baronet
Sir William Henry Prescott, 1st Baronet CBE, DL was a British engineer and Conservative Party politician.The son of John Prescott, he initially studied law and was called to the bar at Gray's Inn in 1909...
, has been restored to running order and is the largest fully operational triple-expansion steam engine in the world. It may be seen in steam on various weekends during the year. The engine house also houses two steam turbine
Steam turbine
A steam turbine is a mechanical device that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam, and converts it into rotary motion. Its modern manifestation was invented by Sir Charles Parsons in 1884....
water pumps.
The waterworks is adjacent to the A316
A316 road
The A316, also known in parts as the Great Chertsey Road, is a major road in England, which runs from the A315 at Chiswick to the M3 motorway....
(just before it becomes the M3 motorway
M3 motorway
The M3 motorway runs in England for approximately from Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey, to Southampton, Hampshire and forms an unsigned section European route E05. It is dual three lanes as far as Junction 8 near Basingstoke and then dual two lane until Junction 9 near Winchester and then dual three...
), between Sunbury-on-Thames
Sunbury-on-Thames
Sunbury-on-Thames, also known as Sunbury, is a town in the Surrey borough of Spelthorne, England, and part of the London commuter belt. It is located 16 miles southwest of central London and bordered by Feltham and Hampton, flanked on the south by the River Thames.-History:The earliest evidence of...
and Hanworth
Hanworth
Hanworth lies to the south east of Feltham in the London Borough of Hounslow. The name is thought to come from the Anglo Saxon words “haen” and “worth”, meaning “small homestead”....
.
The steam engines now form a museum operated by Kempton Great Engines Trust, a registered charity.