The Bever Dorling Steam Winding Engines

If there is no menu above click HERE

THE WINDING ENGINES

Part of the Bever Dorling premises at Bowling Back Lane.

No.4 engine with driver. As the governor is still fitted in this photograph and the back wall window has not been bricked up, it is probably pre-1933.

Augustus Bever and Horace Dorling formed Bever Dorling & Co Ltd in 1906. They had moved from W.J.Cardwells in Dewsbury, to Bradford in 1902. An engine built by Cardwells, Sara, is still on display at the Providence Mills in Dewsbury. The company was first listed as Colliery Engineers, and moved to bigger premises at Bowling Back Lane, Bradford in 1909. Little more however, is known about the company.

Number Four engine as we found her in November 1993.

The company catalogue was extensive, with machinery being manufactured for many uses in mining and also sugar plantations, among others. The only engines known to survive in the world, however, are the two steam engines at Haig, and an electric winder in Hong Kong operating an inclined tramway. This is rumoured to be undergoing restoration as part of the Peak Tramway Development.

Twelve layers of paint of varying colours were stripped from No.4 engine trunk before repainting.

The Company ceased trading in 1932. After a visit to Haig in 1939, Mr William Watson made the following note :-

"The last word in winding engines is, of course, at Haig Pit. There, twin shafts are provided with double engines of enormous capacity. We have seen this machinery recently and have been courteously supplied with the following details : The East or number 4 shaft, designed for riding men

No.4 trunk ready for undercoat. Rust has been removed from the cross head.

principally, is engined as follows : each cylinder thirty inches in diameter, stroke five feet, and winding drum fourteen feet diameter. That engine was erected when the pit was sunk in 1914-1916. The engine at number 5 shaft is indeed a monster, and was erected in 1920. Cylinders are 40 inches in diameter, stroke seven feet, and drum 21 feet diameter. Each cylinder weighs thirteen tons each, the trunks i.e. the connecting rod guides, weigh 11 tons each, and the drum shaft weighs 25 tons.

No.4 crank cover, trunk, and cylinder receiving under coat. The tail rod cover is still missing.

This enormous machine was built by Beaver and Dawley {Bever Dorling} of Bradford, a firm now defunct, and required a train of seventeen wagons to deliver it."

Apart from the last thirteen years, the engines ran continuously for nearly eighty years, apart from an eighteen month lay up during 1935-1937 when the Irish Free State, the mines largest customer, imposed a tax on imported coal, forcing the closure of all the Whitehaven mines.

No.4 engine now complete. The engine is run daily for visitors using compressed air.

The excellent condition of the engines, even after eleven years of neglect, is testimony to the care and attention they have received over the years, by the many men who have had them in their charge.

Gus often still drives his engine during school visits

No.4 Winding Engine driver, Gus McCready, bringing men up the shaft.

Lucy has unfortunately left the project to work in Dorset

Lucy, our ex-Manager, driving No.4 engine.

The No.4 engine has been restored to working order by the volunteers of Haig Colliery Mining Museum with help from the ex-engineers and miners of Haig Pit, grant aid from the Science Museum's PRISM Fund, and a great deal of help from the Engineers at Albright & Wilson, Marchon Works, Whitehaven.

Three generations of the Bever family in the early 1930's. L to R. Augustus Bever, Anthony Bever, and John Bever.

Anthony is a Custodian Trustee of Haig Colliery Mining Museum.

Delivering an engine cylinder through the streets of Bradford to the Railway Station for onward transport.

Mr Bever and his steam car.

Barry, Mr Bever, and Tony with Mr Bever's Stanley steam car after a ride to a local pub in Wiltshire.

Museum@Haigpit.Com