Photographs of Rainworth Water Pumping Station taken in the late 1920's early 30's. Kindly loaned by Mrs. Winifred Dunn (nee Kirby) who lived in the 'big  house' at the bottom of the drive from 1927 to 1943. The pumping machinery consisted of two `A` frame compound beam engines made by Easton & Anderson of Erith, London. They had slide valve cylinders, the High Pressure cylinders were of 16 ins bore x 32 ins stroke and the Low Pressure cylinders were of 24 ins bore x 48 ins  stroke. These engines drove bucket and plunger pumps, delivering 750,000 gallons of water per day. The 'Big House' at the bottom of the drive to the pumping station, nowadays the house is privately owned and fenced off from the driveway. A view of the high / low pressure cylinders driving one of the beam engine.   Some of the details of Winifred's life at Rainworth Winifred's father, Walter Kirby, was given the position of Chief Engineer at Rainworth Waterworks in 1927. Earlier in his life he had helped with the fitting of the machinery for the Lincoln Waterworks, so was well qualified for the position. We moved into a lovely detached house which went with the job. There was also a boiler man, Mr. Malatrat and Mr. Bool, who worked in the engine room. The engines pumped water towards Mansfield to the reservoir at Berry Hill, pumping until the reservoir was full and no working from Saturday lunch time until Monday morning. Later when more water was needed, they worked from 6 am. to 10 pm. That meant that two more men were needed and so two semi-detached houses were built in what was the orchard further down the  main road. The new men were Jack Robinson and Harry Wright. Soon  after moving to Rainworth, Dad bought a car for £20. It was a bull-nosed  Morris, two seater, with a hood and "dicky seat". My sister and I used to ride in the "dicky" and we thought we were princesses. The Waterworks supplied all the water for Mansfield and District, and when we wanted to go out Dad always had to wait until the reservoir reached a certain level. The times we sat waiting for the last inch of water to be reached before the engines could be shut off! As the level of the water was recorded on  charts which were checked at Head Office, there was no way we could leave before the target was reached.