James Starts James, the Bancroft Steam Engine

We (me, Alan, Anna and James) had a delightful picnic outing today to the Bancroft steam engine at Barnoldswick.   This amazing machine is the only working example of a mill engine in Lancashire, whose cotton mills were once awash with them.

Steam is raised in a Cornish boiler and passes to a high pressure engine named James, then to a low pressure engine alongside.   Both drive the rotating shaft which powered the cotton machines in the mill.

Grandson James was asked to start the engine by turning the giant inlet valve.

Lord James has his rather solitary picnic in the back of the Model T

This is the Cornish boiler.   The mill is steamed about once a month and today was one of those days. The furnace uses broken up wooden pallets nowadays