Tag Archives: Steam

‘[….] this wasn’t magic, neither was it brute strength, it was, in fact, ingenuity.  Coal and metal and water and steam and smoke, in one glorious harmony.’

Raising Steam, Sir Terry Pratchett, 2013.

Half a dozen miles north of Hastings, near the charmingly named village of Cackle Street (one of several similarly named hamlets thereabouts) lies the source of much of the town’s water supply, the aquifers under the Brede river valley. Down a lane off the A28, the modern pumping station sits alongside a couple of fine old buildings, in Art Deco and Victorian Baroque styles, which house a pair of huge, steam-powered, water pumps – the so-called Giants of Brede.