Report - - Hydraulic Ram Pumps 21, Cumbria (2019 - 2025) | Industrial Sites (2025)

A roundup of the remaining pumps in Cumbria, collected over several years on the way to mills or mines.

The success rate was about 40% based on old maps, but this figure is only approximate since the labelling is not reliable - in practice you have to look at everything that might be water related to find all the ram pumps.
As usual a few are also shown on modern maps but that doesn’t mean they’re still there, or are even rams.

Most are in the Eden Valley, installed in the early 1900s to pump spring water.

There aren’t that many so for balance I’ve included some typical duds at the end.

Cotehill. There was only a brick base at the map position, but it’s usually worth looking around to see if the pump has been moved.
In this case there was a characteristic drive pipe sticking out of a dam downstream which lead to a Blake with a broken air tank.

Cumwhitton. Two rams are marked on old maps, but one of them is near the top of a hill so is likely to be a tank to which the ram was pumping.
Modern OS maps only show the higher one, also called a ram.
The lower site does contains a pump, installed sometime between 1860 and 1899, probably an Easton although I didn’t see a makers name.
There was furrow heading up towards a boggy area nearby but no obvious reservoir.
Without a ladder down into the sunken chamber I resorted to adding a tree branch to make climbing back out easier.

This is the tank, about 650 m away and 30 m higher.
The top of this and the ram pit have the same construction - a pair of iron girders set in concrete with two eyelets for the lid, so are probably related.

Heads Nook. This was also an older one, and something of a puzzle.
Two rams are shown next to a stream, but the upstream one about 60 m away seemed to have gone.
Instead at the position of the downstream ram is the air tank from a large Warner and a reservoir which could have fed a ram.
Maybe the reservoir was originally at the position of the upstream ‘ram’ and has now been tidied away into the corner of the field.
A few rams by Robert Warner & Co have appeared in previous posts but they’re one of the less common makes.

Keisley. A little hamlet on the flanks of the North Pennines between the lead mining areas of Murton/Hilton and Dufton/Threlkeld Side.
Here we have another Warner, a little one in a pit with a bulging wall, fed by an unusual stone reservoir above.

Laversdale. An older (pre-1899) Blake under trees in a boggy area, taking water from a covered reservoir higher up the hill (second picture below).
There was too much sloppy black mud to get a look at the waste valve.

Little Salkeld. The airtank of a ram of unknown make (probably a Vulcan) sticking out of some rubble at the bottom of a hill.
The structure of the left in the first picture may be the reservoir.

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