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Photo of the pumping station

Lewes Road waterworks
Image reproduced with permission from Brighton History Centre

Comments about this page

  • My uncle Arthur Pelling was the engineer in charge of the Falmer pumping station, and I have many boyhood memories of visiting the huge steam engines and boilers at the station. He lived in the house on the site until his death probably around 1960 something. Is there any more archive information about the station?

    By Chris Pelling (10/05/2007)
  • If I’ve got this location right, and it’s to the back of Saunder’s park, the building to the far right is still standing. It was derelict, burned out and vandalised when I took a nose around there around there in the late 1990s. I remember the ornate tiled interior walls and huge overhead gantry. These places were temples to victorian engineering. It’s since been turned into luxury flats. The location I refer to is 50.838,-0.125

    By Tony Ling (05/01/2008)
  • Are there two differing recalls here? Falmer Pumping Station was certainly on the road to Lewes but at Falmer Road leading up the hill from Moulsecoomb, whereas the other pumping station in the vicinity of Saunders Park seems the likely one that is depicted.  As one travelled up Falmer Road, with Stanmer Park to the left, towards Falmer village, the pumping station was on the right hand side where nowadays the main, heavy traffic road separates towards the rear of Brighton or further on to Moulsecoomb and beyond.  The large working pump could be seen seemingly forever moving up and down as one passed by at any time.  A Mr. Routledge who lived at 28 Newick Road, North Moulsecoomb, was allegedly the Falmer Pumping Station’s pump minder, often working at weekends in order to maintain its working order.

    By Ron Spicer (21/06/2008)
  • The pumping station at Falmer was just south of the station. All I can remember was that you could see the ‘works’ through big glass windows. The site is where the water people have offices now. The pumping station had been rail connected for deliveries of coal, that had gone before I can remember..

    By Ernie Puddick (03/10/2008)
  • I was taken there for a visit by my school, Stanmer, up the road through the tunnel.  I can just remember looking down the well – it seemed to be huge but I expect when you’re young, things appear bigger.  Does anybody know the dimensions of the well?

    By Christopher White (25/09/2016)
  • Was there another pumping station of a similar vintage between Falmer and the Kingston junction?
    Past the Newmarket pub going south.
    I seem to remember seeing it from the bus returning from visiting my grandparents when small (late fifties maybe).

    By Keith Spencer (04/02/2021)

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