projects
Industrial Restoration
As Lost Art develops as a company, expanding the skills of the workforce and expanding the workforce to bring in new skills, we are also constantly looking to expand the services we offer to clients. In the recent past, we have undertaken a range of projects that have been focussed on the Industrial Heritage of the UK rather than the landscape heritage.
These projects have been undertaken alongside our other operations and are now another important sphere of operation for Lost Art, albeit one that both overlaps with and complements our more typical activities.
As of early 2015, we are engaged on a project of considerable heritage value as we undertake the restoration of the Boulton and Watt Rotative Beam Engine located at the Verdant Works in Dundee. Given the nature of the engine (there is another example in the Energy Hall of the Science Museum in London) and the location of the engine in James Watt’s home country, this is an historic artefact of both national and international significance and one that we are both pleased and excited to have been contracted to undertake. The recommendation that Lost Art be appointed for the project came following our successful involvement in the restoration of a Newcomen type beam engine.
The Newcomen Beam Engine
The Newcomen Beam Engine at Elsecar is one of South Yorkshire's finest surviving legacies of the Industrial Revolution. It is the only Newcomen – type atmospheric pressure beam engine in the world to have remained in its original location.
The Newcomen Beam Engine was built to extract water from Elsecar New Colliery, allowing the exploitation of deeper coal seams. Built in 1795, the by John Bargh of Chesterfield at a cost of less than £200.00.
The Beam Engine ran from 1795 until 1923, eventually being replaced by electric pumps. It briefly returned to service in1928 flood incapacitated the newer electric replacemnt were overwhelmed by flooding.
At the peak of its powers, it could remove nearly 40 thousand gallons of water an hour from the mines.
Because of its importance,the engine was classified as a Scheduled Ancient Monument in 1972. Lost Art Limited have undertaken a full restoration of the engine, allowing it to be viewed in operation by new generations, impressed by its size and power and intrigued by the contribution this engine made to the development of the UK as the pre-eminent world economic power during the period of its operation.
The Museum Of Lincolnshire Life, Steam Navvy
Steam navvies of the sort illustrated were a huge help to the construction industry, able as they were to undertake the work of many men in a much shorter space of time.
The example at the Museum of Lincolnshire Life had become rather decrepit in it’s old age, particularly in relation to the operator cabin. Lost Art were able to use traditional methods and materials to return it to a state reflecting its glory days.
Just as today’s mammoth earth moving machines are endlessly exciting and fascinating to young observers, the steam navvy can now proudly present them with a sense of where such monsters have come from.
Having waited a considerable time for one steam crane project to come along, two arrived almost together.
Members of the Lost Art team travelled to the outer reaches of the Scottish islands in order to restore another example of our industrial past.