A permission visit from years ago which I never got round to posting.
Before the development of the electric motor, machinery in port cities was often powered by pressurised water.
This was the Victorian equivalent of electricity, with hydraulic mains serving factories or equipment on the docks.
Liverpool is unusual in that some of these hydraulic machines can still be found, usually as lifting devices in warehouses or hydraulic engines for moving lock gates etc.
I knew that the warehouse on the corner of Vulcan Street and Waterloo Road had a ‘jigger loft’ from the listing https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/101392859-warehouse-kirkdale-ward.
A ‘jigger’ is the hoist used for winching goods up the side of the warehouse, and from the description it sounded like the normal drum type, which was originally wound by hand.
Manual ones are rare, usually being replaced by motorised versions when electricity became available - there are many examples in the Bonded Tea warehouse down the road.
However the Vulcan warehouse is on the hydraulic main so there was a possibility that it also had water-powered lifting equipment i.e. a hydraulic jigger, not mentioned in the listing.
The building is still in use - it’s been a rehearsal/recording studio since the mid 80s - so I walked in and asked if I could have a look round.
The owner, Barry, kindly obliged and gave me a tour of the unused bits, even unscrewing some panels to examine the plumbing.
First a few old photos of the building, which is the sole survivor of this type warehouse on the block between Vulcan and Vandries Streets.
It looks like its neighbour may have been hit during WW11.
The building is on the near right in the photo below, with the arrow pointing to a wall crane, or ‘teagle’, used to swing goods into the basement.
The crane has now gone but its fixings can still be seen.
The outside in 2018 with a single haulage bay for winching up goods.
The brickwork has been cleaned up recently and a new roof installed.
Inside it’s a typical ‘fireproof’ warehouse meaning that everything is made of masonry or iron, with tiled floors over brick vaulted ceilings, iron shutters on the windows, iron internal doors and a stone staircase.
Now up in the attic, the roof was also fire resistant, with tiles wired directly onto iron bars.
I’m guessing this has now been replaced with a more watertight arrangement since it obviously leaked quite badly.
View of the jigger loft from the front of the building - this is the platform on stilts with wheels on top.
These lofts are normally enclosed but the owner removed the cladding to stop pigeons roosting in there.
There seem to be two hoist mechanisms, an old manual wooden one and a more recent electrically powered iron one.
The ‘jib’ with pulleys which projects over the haulage bay and an electric motor (made by Newman of Bristol) for the iron hoist.
Immediately above the jib is a transverse pulley, indicating anther source lifting power.
This turned out to be a hydraulic jigger, which is what I was hoping to find.
The top of this jigger emerges from the floor to the left of the jib.
The majority of the jigger is mounted on the floor below - the top set of pulleys moved upwards when pressurised water was admitted to the central cylinder with the lower set fixed.
The chain has been cut in several places, but would have looped round both sets of pulleys before heading up to the transverse pulley.
The base is actually two floors down.
Hydraulic pipework has characteristic oval flanges - following it down to the basement, the pressure line came in through the wall below ground level (on the left below).
So, one more relic from the short lived ‘hydraulic age’ recorded, making about 20 hydraulic jiggers in Liverpool, not counting some publicly displayed preserved ones.
There are still a handful of old warehouses I haven’t seen the inside of, so there may be a few more to find.
Before the development of the electric motor, machinery in port cities was often powered by pressurised water.
This was the Victorian equivalent of electricity, with hydraulic mains serving factories or equipment on the docks.
Liverpool is unusual in that some of these hydraulic machines can still be found, usually as lifting devices in warehouses or hydraulic engines for moving lock gates etc.
I knew that the warehouse on the corner of Vulcan Street and Waterloo Road had a ‘jigger loft’ from the listing https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/101392859-warehouse-kirkdale-ward.
A ‘jigger’ is the hoist used for winching goods up the side of the warehouse, and from the description it sounded like the normal drum type, which was originally wound by hand.
Manual ones are rare, usually being replaced by motorised versions when electricity became available - there are many examples in the Bonded Tea warehouse down the road.
However the Vulcan warehouse is on the hydraulic main so there was a possibility that it also had water-powered lifting equipment i.e. a hydraulic jigger, not mentioned in the listing.
The building is still in use - it’s been a rehearsal/recording studio since the mid 80s - so I walked in and asked if I could have a look round.
The owner, Barry, kindly obliged and gave me a tour of the unused bits, even unscrewing some panels to examine the plumbing.
First a few old photos of the building, which is the sole survivor of this type warehouse on the block between Vulcan and Vandries Streets.
It looks like its neighbour may have been hit during WW11.
The building is on the near right in the photo below, with the arrow pointing to a wall crane, or ‘teagle’, used to swing goods into the basement.
The crane has now gone but its fixings can still be seen.
The outside in 2018 with a single haulage bay for winching up goods.
The brickwork has been cleaned up recently and a new roof installed.
Inside it’s a typical ‘fireproof’ warehouse meaning that everything is made of masonry or iron, with tiled floors over brick vaulted ceilings, iron shutters on the windows, iron internal doors and a stone staircase.
Now up in the attic, the roof was also fire resistant, with tiles wired directly onto iron bars.
I’m guessing this has now been replaced with a more watertight arrangement since it obviously leaked quite badly.
View of the jigger loft from the front of the building - this is the platform on stilts with wheels on top.
These lofts are normally enclosed but the owner removed the cladding to stop pigeons roosting in there.
There seem to be two hoist mechanisms, an old manual wooden one and a more recent electrically powered iron one.
The ‘jib’ with pulleys which projects over the haulage bay and an electric motor (made by Newman of Bristol) for the iron hoist.
Immediately above the jib is a transverse pulley, indicating anther source lifting power.
This turned out to be a hydraulic jigger, which is what I was hoping to find.
The top of this jigger emerges from the floor to the left of the jib.
The majority of the jigger is mounted on the floor below - the top set of pulleys moved upwards when pressurised water was admitted to the central cylinder with the lower set fixed.
The chain has been cut in several places, but would have looped round both sets of pulleys before heading up to the transverse pulley.
The base is actually two floors down.
Hydraulic pipework has characteristic oval flanges - following it down to the basement, the pressure line came in through the wall below ground level (on the left below).
So, one more relic from the short lived ‘hydraulic age’ recorded, making about 20 hydraulic jiggers in Liverpool, not counting some publicly displayed preserved ones.
There are still a handful of old warehouses I haven’t seen the inside of, so there may be a few more to find.
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