Preston Island, Beam Engine House

The 1st edition of the Ordnance Survey 25 inch map (Perthshire, 1861, sheet CXLIII.5) depicts four saltpans on Preston Island. By 1983, two were recorded along with an engine or pump house, boiler, chimney and shaft at the east end of the island, another engine or pump house at the west end of the island, a housing range at the the south end with an adjacent outbuilding. The style of masonry and stone (yellow sandstone) used is the same in all of the structures. The masonry is roughy squared and coarsed and the chimneys are lined with hand made bricks (red in colour). Both coal shafts adjacent to the engine houses have been capped with concrete, the diameter of the coal shafts therefore unknown. Pantiles (ceramic roof tiles) were noted in the surrounding rubble and tumble from the buildings on the date of survey. In early 1982 the island became surrounded by ash from the Longannet electricity generating power station to the west. An access road to the isand was constructed in 1983.

The pump (or engine) house on the west end of the island (and the eastern pump or engine house) presumably dates from c.1800 when Sir Robert Preston sunk the coal pit and built the saltworks (Adams, 1965).The western beam engine house measures externally 6.2m by 4.8m with walls of 0.7m in thickness. The 'spring' beam joist holes (to reduce the amount of movement as the beam engine moves) and partial original internal plaster wall covering were visible in 1983. (see NRHE MS/500/2/1).