On 1 December 2021 the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) Mills Section will be holding their next online lunchtime lecture. ‘A Pretty Engine’ is the title of a talk to be given by Steve Temple about the earliest reference to the use of a plunger pump.

John Evelyn was the first of three famous garden designers to work at Euston Hall in Suffolk. In order to operate the fountains, Samuel Morland built, as John Evelyn described it, “a pretty engine”, driven by a watermill, to pump water up to a header tank. This is the earliest reference to the use of a “plunger pump” – 1671 – and was probably later employed by Capability Brown at other gardens.

For more information and booking (£8 for non-members) see here: https://www.spab.org.uk/whats-on/lectures/pretty-engine