Pump and walling

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Now disused cast iron water pump of c.1900, sheltered by a low U-shaped rendered wall. The pump set on the east side of Main Street at the centre of the small village of Clogh.

The pump itself is relatively simple with a narrow shaft rising to a curved ‘bowl’ topped with a decorative cap. The short spout is to the W side with the long curving (‘cow-tail’) pumping handle to the S. A moulded band around the middle of the bowl section is embossed with the plumber’s name ‘A Clyde – Ballymena’. Below this the bowl is convex and fluted and has a rope pattern rim to its base. Above it is concave but also fluted. The cap has a rope pattern base rim and rises and narrows in concave form to a simple moulding topped with a small fluted dome. The shaft has ‘spiral’ grooves along its length.

The surrounding U-shaped wall is topped with curved coping. This wall acts as a ‘shelter’ around the pump and as a retaining wall for the higher ground to the E and N. The inner face of the wall is rendered and painted, whilst the outer face is unrendered revealing some repair work in concrete brick. To the SE corner the outer face of the wall is abutted by a breeze block wall and to the S by a timber fence, both belonging to a recently built neighbouring house.

To the N of the wall is a well tended flower bed.

Historical information

The OS Memoirs of 1835 record that a pump was about to be sunk in the centre of the small village of Clogh at that point. This was no doubt at the behest of the village’s improving landlord, Sampson Moore, who some years earlier had built the large hotel (just to the north-east of the site of the pump), raised some of his tenant’s houses to two storey, provided slated roofs, and was about to establish a post office and attempt to establish a grain and butter market. The valuation map of c.1838 gives no indication of the presence of a pump at that date, however this is not to say it had not been installed. The small circle is shown on this site on the OS map of 1857, does suggest, that it was in place at that point, but the letter ‘P’ for pump only appears for the first on the OS map of 1921

t is uncertain when the present cast iron pump was installed, however, its design suggests it appeared in the last quarter of the 19th century or the very early 20th century. It is known that similar designs to this are shown in catalogues of the very early 1900s. The name on the pump, ‘A Clyde- Ballymena’, probably refers to Alexander Clyde, a plumber who was in business in Ballymena from c.1884-88 to 1922.

ferences- Primary source

1 ‘OS Memoirs of Ireland…Co Antrim IV’ ed Angelique Day & Patrick McWilliams (QUB, 1992) [1835]
2 PRONI VAL/1D/1/27 First valuation map of the village of Clogh, c.1835-38
3 PRONI OS/6/1/27/2 OS map, 6in County series, Co Antrim sh 27, 1857
4 Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory (Belfast, 1884-1922)
5 George Henry Bassett, ‘The book of Antrim’ (Dublin, 1888), p.299
6 PRONI OS/6/1/27/3 OS map, 6in County series, Co Antrim sh 27, 1906
7 PRONI OS/6/1/27/4 OS map, 6in County series, Co Antrim sh 27, 1921

Secondary sources

1 Fred Hamond, ‘Water pumps in Northern Ireland: A preliminary survey’ (1997) [Copy in EHS, Hill St., Belfast]

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Good example of a now disused cast iron water pump of c.1900, sheltered by a low U-shaped rendered wall, prominently sited in the centre of Clogh.