“Hobhole Sluice, 1867”

£24.00

High resolution digital image from our catalogue

The Hobhole Sluice is one of several on the River Witham Navigation. The construction of Hobhole sluice was the first time that a steam engine is known to have been used in connection with Fens drainage. In order to keep the foundations for the sluice free from water, they were pumped out by a Boulton & Watt steam engine, rated at 6 hp (4.5 kW). The machine lasted until at least 1814, just 3 years before the first permanent steam pumping station was built at Sutton St. Edmund in South Holland.[