Some more rural pumping stuff, this time hydraulic rams which were used quite widely before the arrival of mains water and electricity.
They haven’t featured on here before apart from one example in a previous post on Edge Mill in Cheshire so some introduction might be useful - or just skip to the pictures.
These are not the usual solid piston type of hydraulic ram as used in JCB arms etc., they’re water-powered pumps.
The name ‘ram’ is said to come from the noise they make when going - thump, thump, thump, like a (sheep) ram butting its head repeatedly again a tree.
Here’s some info, abbreviated from a United Nations essay on water lifting devices http://www.fao.org/3/ah810eAH810E00.htm#Contents.
The hydraulic ram was first developed by the Montgolfier brothers, better known for hot-air balloons (1796).
Essentially, it’s an automatic pump which uses a small fall of water to lift a fraction of the supply flow to a much greater height.
They’re mechanically simple devices with few moving parts so require little maintenance, no power supply and are still manufactured on a small scale, mainly for use in third world countries.
The picture below explains how they work.
Water starts to flow from a source (3) down a pipe (2) and out a spring-loaded or weighted waste valve (1).
There’s usually a filter in the line somewhere, (4) in this diagram, to keep twigs and stuff out of the workings.
When the flow is fast enough the waste valve is forced shut producing a pressure pulse which ejects some of the water through valve (6) into tank (7) compressing the air and starting to push water up the outlet (8).
This pulse or shock is the familiar ’water hammer’ effect responsible for the banging of pipes in old houses.
Valve (6) is now closed by the air pressure and with more water pushed up the outlet as the air expands.
When the pressure in the tank and main body (5) has dropped the waste valve springs open, water starts to flow again and the cycle repeats.
The air tank improves performance by cushioning the shock and smoothing the output flow - most reciprocating pumping devices for liquids also have ballast tanks like this.
You’ll find plenty more on the web including videos of the pumps in action e.g.
Rams usually live in little huts or in underground chambers.
While I’ve found quite a few over the years, the surface ones tend to be a bit wrecked, usually just the air tank sitting like a pock-marked bollard in the ruins of its hut.
So for this report, which is mostly phone pics, I’ll concentrate on the underground sort which are often in better shape.
However one ram in a hut to start with since it’s in a nice location in a wooded valley south of Bridgenorth.
There used to be a corn mill on the opposite side of this weir, but only a few low walls are left of the mill.
Near where the picture above was taken is a tank where a filter was visible after pulling out some bricks and mud.
A pipe leads down to the ram in its little hut - this actually looks a bit skinny to be the inlet/drive pipe.
The label, which says ‘quote No 6009’ may be the bottom of one attached by the supplier rather than the maker of the ram.
Old @tigger might know - hydraulic rams are apparently one of his ‘things’.
Now for some rams in sunken chambers.
The main problem here is that if the water exit, which is usually to a nearby stream, has been blocked they get flooded.
Here’s a typical example - ram huts can look a bit like icehouses.
But if the water’s clear enough sometimes machinery can be seen.
This is one south of Kidderminster - the label might be readable with a better picture (it’s probably a Blake compound ram, see later).
Two unflooded small ones on farms, one with added frogs.
Both rams were made by John Blake Ltd. who made and installed a lot of these and are still going.
The larger ones have stairs going down as in this example near Newport.
Water was still flowing freely through the waste valve.
The picture on the right below is the collection/filter tank about 20 yards away with a flap for controlling the supply.
The next one near Malpas is an example of a ‘compound ram’, driven by one source of water, but pumping another - usually from a cleaner spring or well.
These have an extended middle section with a dumbbell-shaped double-ended piston/ram connecting the two types of water chambers.
The tank is for the clean water which is being pumped.
It looks as if it may have some attention fairly recently, as is the last decade or so, with gaskets and spanners on a shelf.
A tiny baby wren in the nest at the back.
Finally another compound ram near Whitchurch and an example of why these things can sometimes be hard to find, particularly in summer - I left the entrance much as I had found it.
This one was quite big, maybe about 4.5 foot high from memory.
On the wall it says ‘overhauled by ??? of Wyatt Bros. April 1923’.
Wyatt were still going as water engineers based in Whitchurch until quite recently.
Epic newt.
The examples above were found by looking at old maps while I was doing a mill or something nearby.
Although as machines go there isn’t much to see, the more complete examples are just rare enough to make it interesting to hunt them down in damp and overgrown corners of the countryside.
They haven’t featured on here before apart from one example in a previous post on Edge Mill in Cheshire so some introduction might be useful - or just skip to the pictures.
These are not the usual solid piston type of hydraulic ram as used in JCB arms etc., they’re water-powered pumps.
The name ‘ram’ is said to come from the noise they make when going - thump, thump, thump, like a (sheep) ram butting its head repeatedly again a tree.
Here’s some info, abbreviated from a United Nations essay on water lifting devices http://www.fao.org/3/ah810eAH810E00.htm#Contents.
The hydraulic ram was first developed by the Montgolfier brothers, better known for hot-air balloons (1796).
Essentially, it’s an automatic pump which uses a small fall of water to lift a fraction of the supply flow to a much greater height.
They’re mechanically simple devices with few moving parts so require little maintenance, no power supply and are still manufactured on a small scale, mainly for use in third world countries.
The picture below explains how they work.
Water starts to flow from a source (3) down a pipe (2) and out a spring-loaded or weighted waste valve (1).
There’s usually a filter in the line somewhere, (4) in this diagram, to keep twigs and stuff out of the workings.
When the flow is fast enough the waste valve is forced shut producing a pressure pulse which ejects some of the water through valve (6) into tank (7) compressing the air and starting to push water up the outlet (8).
This pulse or shock is the familiar ’water hammer’ effect responsible for the banging of pipes in old houses.
Valve (6) is now closed by the air pressure and with more water pushed up the outlet as the air expands.
When the pressure in the tank and main body (5) has dropped the waste valve springs open, water starts to flow again and the cycle repeats.
The air tank improves performance by cushioning the shock and smoothing the output flow - most reciprocating pumping devices for liquids also have ballast tanks like this.
You’ll find plenty more on the web including videos of the pumps in action e.g.
Rams usually live in little huts or in underground chambers.
While I’ve found quite a few over the years, the surface ones tend to be a bit wrecked, usually just the air tank sitting like a pock-marked bollard in the ruins of its hut.
So for this report, which is mostly phone pics, I’ll concentrate on the underground sort which are often in better shape.
However one ram in a hut to start with since it’s in a nice location in a wooded valley south of Bridgenorth.
There used to be a corn mill on the opposite side of this weir, but only a few low walls are left of the mill.
Near where the picture above was taken is a tank where a filter was visible after pulling out some bricks and mud.
A pipe leads down to the ram in its little hut - this actually looks a bit skinny to be the inlet/drive pipe.
The label, which says ‘quote No 6009’ may be the bottom of one attached by the supplier rather than the maker of the ram.
Old @tigger might know - hydraulic rams are apparently one of his ‘things’.
Now for some rams in sunken chambers.
The main problem here is that if the water exit, which is usually to a nearby stream, has been blocked they get flooded.
Here’s a typical example - ram huts can look a bit like icehouses.
But if the water’s clear enough sometimes machinery can be seen.
This is one south of Kidderminster - the label might be readable with a better picture (it’s probably a Blake compound ram, see later).
Two unflooded small ones on farms, one with added frogs.
Both rams were made by John Blake Ltd. who made and installed a lot of these and are still going.
The larger ones have stairs going down as in this example near Newport.
Water was still flowing freely through the waste valve.
The picture on the right below is the collection/filter tank about 20 yards away with a flap for controlling the supply.
The next one near Malpas is an example of a ‘compound ram’, driven by one source of water, but pumping another - usually from a cleaner spring or well.
These have an extended middle section with a dumbbell-shaped double-ended piston/ram connecting the two types of water chambers.
The tank is for the clean water which is being pumped.
It looks as if it may have some attention fairly recently, as is the last decade or so, with gaskets and spanners on a shelf.
A tiny baby wren in the nest at the back.
Finally another compound ram near Whitchurch and an example of why these things can sometimes be hard to find, particularly in summer - I left the entrance much as I had found it.
This one was quite big, maybe about 4.5 foot high from memory.
On the wall it says ‘overhauled by ??? of Wyatt Bros. April 1923’.
Wyatt were still going as water engineers based in Whitchurch until quite recently.
Epic newt.
The examples above were found by looking at old maps while I was doing a mill or something nearby.
Although as machines go there isn’t much to see, the more complete examples are just rare enough to make it interesting to hunt them down in damp and overgrown corners of the countryside.
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