This is the oldest working generator in Britain.

It generates up to 400v DC, which is enough to give you a nasty shock.

It is still used to run the lights at Claymills Pumping Station on days when they are steaming. Check out the control panel.

Those T logos on the fuse boxes are for Tesla – the original, not the tribute band.

The generator is driven by this steam engine.

The steam comes from a completely different building.

This is the boiler room.

Now, I know what you are thinking if you are a steam nerd and not just someone thinks the second law of thermodynamics is about wearing goggles on a top hat. You’re thinking, That’s an awfully big boiler room just to run some lights.

Well, it also runs four huge beam engines.

Two of them have been lovingly restored by a team of volunteers over the past few decades, and the others are in progress. What’s more, they are doing all the restoration work with period tools and workshops. The metal shop here has a lathe over twenty feet long.

THere’s also a forge…

… and a wood shop.

We had a private tour from an extremely knowledgable sixteen year old volunteer.

He’s been working at the pumping station for five years now, and knows all the machinery intimately.

So what was the purpose of all this pumping? To get water to the breweries for which Burton-on-Trent is famous, perhaps? Nope, it was to get raw sewage (and industrial waste from the breweries) out of town. Back in the early seventeenth century, Burton was dumping all its sewage and waste into the river Trent. Then came the long hot, dry summer of 1858. It must have been pretty much like this one. Water flow in the river almost stopped. The sewage and beer sludge just stayed there. That’s the year they call The Great Stink. After that it was clear that something must be done, so funds were raised to pump the sewage to the neighboring village of Egginton and make it their problem.

Our friends and regular crew on our boat, Nick and Margaret, joined us this afternoon, and we headed for Burton-on-Trent’s second best tourist attraction, The National Brewery Center. The well water in Burton flows through gypsum, which gives it a flavor that goes well with hops and malted barley. At one time one pint in four of all the beer drunk in the UK was brewed in Burton. Today there are still several large breweries operating here. The beer museum has strange vehicles.

Nick wanted me to take a photo of this box.

Bass had four huge sites in Burton, with a private railway network to shift products from one site to another. It ran until the 1960s, and they still have one steam engine left.

They also have a vintage cast iron urinal.

That pretty much completes the story of beer, after all.