IN the age of disposable cameras and superfast broadband there is still something captivating about a steam engine.
The Combe Mill beam engine was built in 1852 to power the mill’s machinery, and as volunteer Gordon Lord, 75, says, “how many pieces of machinery do you know that have survived since 1852?”
Until 1912, the steam engine was used as an auxiliary source of power for lathes and the bellows of the furnace when the water wheel could not be used.
Then it fell into disuse, and was only rediscovered by chance in 1969 by industrial archaeologists from the Oxfordshire Museum.
They decided to fix it up, and five years later it was steaming again for the first time in six decades.
The Combe Mill Society now leases the land from Blenheim Palace and operates it as a working museum.
Alongside the beam engine there are other steam engines in operation on the third Sunday of every month between March and October, including this Sunday.
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