Steam lottery win (From The Oxford Times)

Steam lottery win

9:24am Thursday 22nd July 2010 in

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A GROUP of volunteer conservationists are celebrating a Lottery grant awarded to them as a first step to restoring one of the nation’s oldest steam beam engines.

The Heritage Lottery Fund has awarded £72,000 for Combe Mill Society to pay for surveys and consultations into how best to restore the Grade II* Combe Mill building and its engine — which until it was taken out of service in 2005 was the oldest engine of this type still working in its original place. Now the society can move to the second stage of the Lottery grants and bid for £626,000 early in 2011. It must also raise £313,000 itself.

The society’s secretary, Tony Simmons, said: “This grant is great news for all volunteers, local councillors and visitors to Combe Mill who have long recognised the importance of saving this hidden gem of industrial history for future generations.”

The beam engine was built in Cornwall but installed at Combe Mil in 1852 to supplement the water wheel which had operated there since medieval times. The mill stands across the Evenlode river from Combe Halt.

The mill, one of a group of Victorian buildings known as Combe Yard, was the powerhouse of the Blenheim Palace Estate sawmill. Other buildings in the yard have now been converted into offices.