A VINTAGE fire engine has made a likely final journey to its spiritual home.

The Victorian appliance was transported to the Old Fire Station in Alresford, 80 years after a similar engine left the base.

One of the old Merryweather Steamer Pump appliances built in the 1890s and similar to that operating in Alresford in the early part of the 20th century moved into the Old Fire Station on August 18.

The fire engine had not travelled far over the last hundred years as it was originally used on the Tichborne Park Estate and for many years it was housed at the fire station on Pound Hill.

It was transferred to the newly-refurbished Broad Street Fire Station which was built in 1881 and housed the town’s fire brigade and their equipment up until 1938 when the new fire station was completed.

The Old Fire Station is owned by the New Alresford Town Trust which has refurbished the original part of the building that formed the fire station to house the new Alresford Museum.

“The original idea was to create exhibition and display space for local historical artefacts in the Old Fire Station but when the possibility of actually housing a local, vintage fire engine became a reality our plans changed,” said Roy Gentry, chairman of the Alresford and District Museum Trust.

“Our focus now will be on preparing suitable displays to complement the fire engine and open the Museum to the public. We are grateful to the Hampshire Fire Service, Alan House and the Hampshire Police and Fire Heritage Trust for their help in making this project a reality.

“The move went very well. There were about 50 people at the Old Fire Station. We had a procession up West Street and down Broad Street and stopped the traffic.

“Lots of people were taking photographs as we drove it down to the old station, unloaded it and pushed it in. It is back in its home.”

The original plan had been to bring in two horses to pull the engine but there were fears the wooden wheels would have been unable to cope.

Mr Gentry said: “We didn’t think a wheel would have come off but it might have splintered and we would have ended up turning a nice day into a disaster.”

The engine will be available for the public to have a closer look in the Heritage Open Weekend of September 15-16.

The fire engine originally came into the possession of the Hankin family in the 1960s and was housed in the fire station on Pound Hill when Alex Hankin was Alresford’s Chief Fire Officer. The Hankin family spent thousands of pounds restoring the appliance in the early 1990s and John Hankin is delighted it will be staying in the town.

In order to successfully display the fire engine and associated artefacts, the Museum Trust needs more volunteers. Help is needed to prepare displays, undertake historical research and produce display material as well stewards to man the museum when it is open to the public. Anybody who thinks they may be able to help should contact Roy Gentry on 01962 773185 or roy.gentry@alresford.org.

Town trustee John Cattle said: “This is something we have long wanted to do. It’s nice to get it back to where it should be. I have a fire service background. My father in law ran the old control room on Andover Road and my wife and mother in law were in the Auxiliary Fire Service.”

During the 1800s and into the 20th century, in the days when there were no real standards for having or operating a Fire Brigade, many Estate owners, and eminent people took the decision to establish their own fire brigades to protect their families, main country house, and other estate properties or interests. In the beginning, these were little more than ‘bucket brigades’ and pumps were of the horse drawn or hand pulled ‘manual pumps’ requiring up to 16 persons to manually provide the motive power to send water through leather hosepipes.

The first steam engine appeared in 1829, but its design never gained any acceptance and a refined design did not make a reappearance until 1858. One of the two most widely used ‘Steamers’ was made by ‘Merryweather’, the manufacturer of the Tichborne Park example and in 1878 they were boasting that they had sold over 500 of these horse drawn wonders of the age, which for the first time provided mechanical motive power to a pump capable of producing the sustained and powerful jets of water required to extinguish serious fires.

The introduction of the steamer changed the face of the firefighting and enable the ‘Firemen’ of the time to finally save property rather than just reducing spread from one property to another. They continued in use until the early 1920s by which time the petrol engine was being used to drive the pump and transport firemen to the scene.

Alresford did have a steam fire engine, again manufactured by Merryweather and this was delivered on October 1 1908 and given the name ‘Vulcan’, replacing a manual pump with had served the town for the previous 50 years.

Little is known about the Tichborne Park Fire Brigade, but it is very likely that the steamer replaced a previously used manual pump.

  • All photographs supplied by Godfrey Andrews - http://alresfordheritage.co.uk.