Shirley Village and The Hydraulic Ram Pump

My turn this week and we had a date to meet a farmer at 10:30 ish near Brailsford, so we went to the Village of Shirley close by and ha a wander around there first. A nice bright morning we parked on the outskirts of Shirley then headed through the fields and woods to Shirley Park. The track through the woods was very wet and boggy and we had to make a few diversions around the worst area's.  We ended up at the Saw Mill on the edge of Shirley Park and that's where we had our breakfast.

Hang on there's only 7 legs!!!

Quite a lot of board walks in this section before we got into the  woods

Footbridge

Geoff

Geoff, Ike, Rob

Rob, Ike, Geoff

Small weir in the brook

Quite a lot of water in the woods

Huge tree's in Shirley Park

Rob, tree hugging

Grade 11 listed building.Shirley Saw mill on the Osmaston Manor estate.
c1845 by Henry Stevens of Derby

Breakfast stop

The track leading up to Osmaston Park from Shirley Saw Mill

St. Michael's Church, Shirley

St. Michael's Church, Shirley with the remains of Shirley Cross in the foreground

St. Michael's Church, Shirley

Common Buzzard

Blue tit

Chaffinch

Me trapped by a monster tree

Geoff, Ike & Rob

Hydraulic Ram Pump on Hilltop Farm

Rob went down into the pump chamber to get some closer pics.

A hydraulic ram, or hydram, is a cyclic water pump powered by hydropower. It takes in water at one "hydraulic head" (pressure) and flow rate, and outputs water at a higher hydraulic head and lower flow rate. The device uses the water hammer effect to develop pressure that allows a portion of the input water that powers the pump to be lifted to a point higher than where the water originally started. The hydraulic ram is sometimes used in remote areas, where there is both a source of low-head hydropower and a need for pumping water to a destination higher in elevation than the source. In this situation, the ram is often useful, since it requires no outside source of power other than the kinetic energy of flowing water.

Nick & youngster down in the pit

Isla cooling off

Just messing about on the river!!!

A cracking morning with the visit to the farm to see the water pump being the highlight. The farmer Patrick gave us some great information and a tour of the ground works. Nice bloke.
See you next week