The Abbey Pumping Station Museum in Leicester was constructed in the 1890s as a sewage pumping plant, but it has been a museum since the 1970s. The museum is best described as a science and technology museum, but it also contains a variety of living items. Four working steam-powered beam engines (as part of the pumping station) and information about public health, transport, and more can be seen in the museum.
While walking toward the entrance of the museum, I noticed a little house sculpture. There was an information board to describe this public art. It is Wingerton. Wingerton is a solar-powered spaceship with an alien inside that repeats sounds back. Someone had made a flatulence sound, so it was repeating that when visitors walked up to look at it. It made me laugh. The sculpture was commissioned in 2001 by Dave Young to coincide with the National Space Centre musuem opening. (The sculpture reminded me very much like Dinky Doors in Cambridge: Read more about Dinky Doors).
Outside the museum are several large steam engines or equipment.
A small section of the museum contained products made in Leicester.
Inside the museum, an area about public health focused on sewage and water usage. The exhibits display Victorian toilets, Roman water pipes, examples of a Victorian sewage pipe cross-section with a modern-day sewage cross-section, and more. Another area was on laundry and washing clothing, and another was on bathing. Bathrooms with showers are a relatively modern-day room.
There was a small cinema inside the museum to reflect histocial cinema, cameras, and projectors.
The beam engines are restored to full working order, and they are switched on throughout the year for special events. The sewage pumping station was built to pump sewage to a treatment works at Beaumont Leys. They were replaced by electric pumps in the 1960s.
The museum is fairly small with ability to read about some of the most interesting exhibitions in about an hour.
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