Saltcoats, Auchenharvie Pumping Engine House

FOR FULL HES REPORT, see WP007265

The Newcomen atmospheric engine was the first viable, commercially produced mine water pumping engine. The first Newcomen engine known to have been installed was at the Coneygree Coal Works, Tipton in the West Midlands of England in 1712. Auchenharvie engine house is traditionally held to have accommodated a Newcomen-type mine pumping engine installed in 1719. It is known that an engine was installed in that year to pump the coal measures ‘near Saltcoats’ in order to drain them. The Auchenharvie beam engine house’s location in the Stevenston coalfield where the earliest shafts were sunk and coal worked and its structure suggests that it is a very early engine house.

Photographic evidence from c.1910 shows what can be interpreted as ‘sommer beam’ or engine beam holes in its west wall. These apertures were about 22 inches apart at the inner edges of each aperture and could have supported the 18-inch engine cylinder with which the

1719 engine was reportedly equipped. The engine house does not appear on maps of 1775 or 1798, although this may be simply because it had fallen into disuse. The Ordnance Survey map evidence indicates that the engine house was already ruinous by 1856, suggesting a significant period of abandonment prior to the mid-19th century. However, without further documentary evidence or perhaps archaeological excavation to

‘bottom out’ the floor, in order to ascertain its original level, it is difficult to be certain if this is, either in whole or in part, the engine house that was originally constructed in 1719 to house

the ‘fire or steam engine’ (i.e. the Newcomen engine).

Information from HES WP007265, 'Auchenharvie Beam Engine House', Miriam McDonald, 2020, HES report, Survey and Recording Section.

NS24SE 46 25684 41384

Ruins of a beam-engine house, reputedly built 1719. Most of one gable, and parts of the other three walls remain. It is supposed to have been the site of the second Newcomen engine in Scotland. The masonry of the gable suggests that the house has been occupied by a rotative engine at some time. The engine installed in 1718-9 to facilitate drainage of a coal-pit, was replaced in 1732 by a larger one.

J Butt 1967

The conserved ruin, approximately 7m square, now forms a feature of an open park.

Visited by OS 28 September 1982.