Introduction
Me and @JakeV50 had a small pump house pinned near to the Cantley Sugar Factory site so decided to have a look for it. Turns out, it wasn’t there anymore but along the way, we found a couple of nice little pump houses.
Information & History
Cantley Sugar Factory is a large production facility located in the Norfolk Broads. It opened in 1912 and is one of several British Sugar sites in the UK. The main factory is surrounded by numerous settling ponds which vary in size. These aim to remove particulates and turbidity (cloudy polluted water) from wastewater to control water pollution at the facility. Regular draining and re-silting are required hence the need for pumping equipment to pump the water around.
The Explore
This one turned out to be a good day out, finding a couple of nice pumping stations we didn’t notice on maps. There are several dotted around the settling ponds, some accessible, some not, and many are still active.
Photos
A public footpath runs between the main factory and the River Yare, so it felt appropriate to walk by the factory itself. The large original building in the centre is very old and has some lovely design cues. The windows reminded me of parts of Fletcher’s Paper Mill that I visited at the end of last year.
Further along the path revealed some in-use water treatment systems humming away
Employees of the factory can fish on the river banks and in some of the ponds
We got lucky with the first pumping station which is situated right by the River Yare and is used to pump water from the Yare to the settling ponds to aid the cleaning process. There was a temporary ladder and light hanging up inside and the door was open a jar, it was as if an engineer had been working in there that morning and had gone for their lunch. We quickly took turns inside taking some handheld shots, thanks to the handy light we didn’t quite have to use potato ISO, just slight potato. We were a little worried about someone coming back and finding us in there but thankfully had no issues as we didn’t hang around.
This building contains a snail-shaped Pulseometer pump powered via a modern electric motor with a drive-belt. The belt system and pump looked pretty old, but the electric motor seemed a lot newer. I am thinking the original setup would’ve used a small diesel engine before being replaced by the electric unit.
Moving along the footpath revealed more water structures such as a pipe system which runs around the site
One of the larger basins had a portable pumping setup running alongside another pumping station which appeared disused. This one was inaccessible bar a small empty storage area to the side.
In the same area, we found two more small pump houses, but these were inaccessible, the first one being locked, and the second surrounded by incredibly boggy water.
The final pumping station we came across was in a very plain building, we saw it from the footpath and almost disregarded it as storage but were pleasantly surprised when we opened the door which revealed a large Rees Roturbo pump which was powered by an Electric Construction Co. motor.
This setup looks considerably older than the building it sits in, I would imagine the old structure was constructed cheaply from corrugated iron and was in poor condition, forcing the factory to replace it. This set up is most certainly disused, I wonder how long it’s been out of action?
We enjoyed the nice scenery The Broads has to offer before heading back to the car.
Thanks for looking.
Me and @JakeV50 had a small pump house pinned near to the Cantley Sugar Factory site so decided to have a look for it. Turns out, it wasn’t there anymore but along the way, we found a couple of nice little pump houses.
Information & History
Cantley Sugar Factory is a large production facility located in the Norfolk Broads. It opened in 1912 and is one of several British Sugar sites in the UK. The main factory is surrounded by numerous settling ponds which vary in size. These aim to remove particulates and turbidity (cloudy polluted water) from wastewater to control water pollution at the facility. Regular draining and re-silting are required hence the need for pumping equipment to pump the water around.
The Explore
This one turned out to be a good day out, finding a couple of nice pumping stations we didn’t notice on maps. There are several dotted around the settling ponds, some accessible, some not, and many are still active.
Photos
A public footpath runs between the main factory and the River Yare, so it felt appropriate to walk by the factory itself. The large original building in the centre is very old and has some lovely design cues. The windows reminded me of parts of Fletcher’s Paper Mill that I visited at the end of last year.
Further along the path revealed some in-use water treatment systems humming away
Employees of the factory can fish on the river banks and in some of the ponds
We got lucky with the first pumping station which is situated right by the River Yare and is used to pump water from the Yare to the settling ponds to aid the cleaning process. There was a temporary ladder and light hanging up inside and the door was open a jar, it was as if an engineer had been working in there that morning and had gone for their lunch. We quickly took turns inside taking some handheld shots, thanks to the handy light we didn’t quite have to use potato ISO, just slight potato. We were a little worried about someone coming back and finding us in there but thankfully had no issues as we didn’t hang around.
This building contains a snail-shaped Pulseometer pump powered via a modern electric motor with a drive-belt. The belt system and pump looked pretty old, but the electric motor seemed a lot newer. I am thinking the original setup would’ve used a small diesel engine before being replaced by the electric unit.
Moving along the footpath revealed more water structures such as a pipe system which runs around the site
One of the larger basins had a portable pumping setup running alongside another pumping station which appeared disused. This one was inaccessible bar a small empty storage area to the side.
In the same area, we found two more small pump houses, but these were inaccessible, the first one being locked, and the second surrounded by incredibly boggy water.
The final pumping station we came across was in a very plain building, we saw it from the footpath and almost disregarded it as storage but were pleasantly surprised when we opened the door which revealed a large Rees Roturbo pump which was powered by an Electric Construction Co. motor.
This setup looks considerably older than the building it sits in, I would imagine the old structure was constructed cheaply from corrugated iron and was in poor condition, forcing the factory to replace it. This set up is most certainly disused, I wonder how long it’s been out of action?
We enjoyed the nice scenery The Broads has to offer before heading back to the car.
Thanks for looking.
. Two for the price of one.
. I like anything mate more or less, I will let you know.
