Vintage Machine.

[Dishmop]

This is a washing machine in situ at Gressenhall Museum which used to be a workhouse.

Does anybody know of the existence of anything similar anywhere.
The later models were powered by electrickery but these are run from overhead steam powered shafts/pulleys.
They would like to get this restored to a condition where the public could see how it worked......
In the late 60's I repaired a couple of the later electric ones which had very large cast iron gearwheels which had broken,, so I also happen to know how they work.


The thing on the right is a spin dryer......

 

[Hachi]

I won't show these pictures to the Mrs otherwise she want me to update her kit too.

Now where is that body armour when you need it

 

[Queens59]

Wow - I've never seen such technology - where can I buy it??

 

[drfraz]

Always wondered where our hospital sends it's sheets....

 

[victor meldrew]

I recognise the dolly tub and the posser!
But where's the mangle I used to have to run home from school at Monday lunch time to turn the handle whilst Mum fed a huge pile of ex army blankets and cotton sheets through
No reward but a clip around the ear if I moaned
VM

 

[Dishmop]

There are some small mangles there on sinks which you cant see.

I think towards the end of its life as a workhouse, they did take in laundry from the public.
Hospitals and prisons would have had much the same sort of machinery.

Sheets were pressed on a machine called a calender... A big heated roller while they were damp, but after having been dried in cabinets like a chest of drawers on its side, with upright drawers..

Please keep comments on upright drawers clean....

 

[pargyle]

I recognise the dolly tub and the posser!
But where's the mangle I used to have to run home from school at Monday lunch time to turn the handle whilst Mum fed a huge pile of ex army blankets and cotton sheets through
No reward but a clip around the ear if I moaned
VM

Yes, as a kid growing up in Yorkshire in the early 50's virtually every household had a wash tub, a dolly and a washboard - we had a mangle that lived in the 'wash house' at the back of the house, it had a 'copper' in the corner set over a brick built 'fire hole'. My mother would use the copper to boil the washing up on Mondays.

I find more and more, as I get older, that my childhood is being portrayed as historical and the household items that I recall are now named 'mid 20th Century artefacts !!! Getting old .....

 

[oliver90owner]

Nof a lot shown that would have been driven by that line shaft.

Line shafts are still reasonably common, but truncated versions for demonstration mostly - although my local brewery still uses one that was installed many years ago. It is now electric powered but still serves a useful purpose at the mashing stage. There are line shafts at the local farm (Sacrewell, near Peterborough) where a water wheel was the energy souce for the milling operations. We have a working shaft installed at our club museum at Lamport Hall, near Kettering.

A lot of windmills will have short line shafts - wind driven of course, but most were designed as gravity flow. Steam much replaced wind power and later stationary internal combustion engines would have replaced the steam prime movers as the latter became old, unsafe and less economical.

The ultimate short line shaft wasn't actually a line, was not continuously powered and was often manumatic in the very early days - the hoist to get the grain to the top of the mill. These were often made horse-driven shafts.

Gressenhall, Sacrewell and Lamport Hall are each a worthwhile visit for those interested in old machinery.

We did not take too much notice of the tackle shown above, at Gressenhall, when we visited as there was so much other stuff of interest. We went round Castle Acre on the same day, as I recall, but the local wind turbine with a viewing platfom area was only open on certain days - we shall choose one of those days for our next visit to the area.

RAB

 

[Erichalfbee]

Yes, as a kid growing up in Yorkshire in the early 50's virtually every household had a wash tub, a dolly and a washboard

Same here but post war new town in Hertfordshire.
Mum kept that old gas boiler for years in her shed after she got a washing machine.
When we got a spin dryer all our neighbours would borrow it.

My husband's grandson asks us about "the olden days"

 

[Dishmop]

I didnt take too much notice but I think that only the two machines shown were driven by the shaft.
On the left of the photo there is another machine of a different design that was electric and also the spin dryer was electric.


Never looked into what is at Sacrewell, but will have to make time for a visit, and although we have beento Lamport railway several times I didnt know there were any other visitor attactions nearby.

 

[Dishmop]

I find more and more, as I get older, that my childhood is being portrayed as historical and the household items that I recall are now named 'mid 20th Century artefacts !!! Getting old ...

We have a "picnic" gramaphone which we use as part of a display and when I hear dads explaining to their children how they work I sometimes interupt and ask if their kids actaully know what a record is!!!!

 

[pargyle]

We have a "picnic" gramaphone which we use as part of a display and when I hear dads explaining to their children how they work I sometimes interupt and ask if their kids actaully know what a record is!!!!

Yep ... I made a mistake a few weeks ago and told my 30 year old daughter to 'put the wireless on' .... complete blank expression ... we are losing a lot of our language !

Anyone over 60 should take a trip to the Kensington Science Museum ... scary how many of their exhibits I recognise from seeing them used ! And as for all those steam engines and steam rollers at the Dorset Steam Fair ... now worth tens if not hundreds of thousands of pounds ... there was a scrap yard at the bottom of our road full of them !!

 

[Dishmop]

there was a scrap yard at the bottom of our road full of them !!

I remember seeing all the steam trains lined up in a local scrap dealers. They laid lines down especially to get them into the yard.

 

[Dishmop]

Anyone over 60 should take a trip to the Kensington Science Museum ... scary how many of their exhibits I recognise from seeing them used

I laught and tell people that they should say they "remember their grandmother having one of those"

 

[pargyle]

I laught and tell people that they should say they "remember their grandmother having one of those"

Ha ... My OH is in denial (despite the fact that she's a few weeks older than me). Tells everyone that I'm actually a time traveller and she has no recollection of the things I remember ... It's either that or the other comment is 'Well, Yorkshire always was 20 years behind the rest of the country'.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Anyone over 60 should take a trip to the Kensington Science Museum ... scary how many of their exhibits I recognise from seeing them used !

Over 60! was in the tudor house in Poole during one of our Olympic stand down days last year listening to someone explaining to his grandchildren what a potato masher was (the stainless stell type that is!!)

I remember seeing all the steam trains lined up in a local scrap dealers. They laid lines down especially to get them into the yard.

Barry docks was the place for that - acres and acres of them, and rolling stock. I remember a Sunday School trip when I was a little un, the buses parked next to the yard and my great uncle taking me around all the engines - still sends shivers down my spine.
I was working in Barry docks when the last steam engine went from there (intact to a museum thankfully) but recall the massive piles of cut up coal wagons and wheels waiting to be shipped away for re-smelting

 

[pargyle]

Over 60! was in the tudor house in Poole during one of our Olympic stand down days last year listening to someone explaining to his grandchildren what a potato masher was (the stainless stell type that is!!)


Barry docks was the place for that - acres and acres of them, and rolling stock. I remember a Sunday School trip when I was a little un, the buses parked next to the yard and my great uncle taking me around all the engines - still sends shivers down my spine.
I was working in Barry docks when the last steam engine went from there (intact to a museum thankfully) but recall the massive piles of cut up coal wagons and wheels waiting to be shipped away for re-smelting

Yes ... Thank goodness for Woodhams and a few enthusiasts who saw the heritage value in the Steam engines .... York railway museum is one of those 'do before you die' musts ...

Here's a bit of Nostalgia JBM

http://www.penmorfa.com/Barry/

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Thanks Phil - have had to stop scrolling through it as I'm in danger of blubbing in the office - fond memories of me and my Great Uncle Del. scrabbbling over the engines in about 1970-71
Wouldn't happen nowadays would it - letting a four year old play in a scrapyard!

 

[Dishmop]

One of my repro items which when asked about you encounter a blank expression when you explain the use..


and my home made plywood range..

 

[Dishmop]

Wouldn't happen nowadays would it - letting a four year old play in a scrapyard!

I remember standing in a yard watching a bloke chopping up what might have been sten guns..in a power guillotine.