August 2019 Picture of the Month

The pumping station in the Brede Valley in East Sussex was built in the opening years of the 20th century to supply fresh water to Hastings. Originally it was equipped with two enormous steam engines by Tangye of Birmingham, and in 1940 a huge Worthington-Simpson engine in an adjacent engine house was added, the three operating into the late 1960s before their role was taken over by electric motors. One of the Tangye engines was demolished in the late 1960s but the other survives, together with the Worthington-Simpson, the pair now known as the 'Giants of Brede' – and giants they most certainly are. This is the surviving Tangye engine. Photographed early July 2019, Canon 5DMkIV, 14mm lens.