Block Parts

The Portsmouth Block Mills form part of the Portsmouth Dockyard at Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, and were built during the Napoleonic Wars to supply the British Royal Navy with pulley blocks. more...

Home
ATV Parts
Apparel & Merchandise
Automotive Tools
Aviation Parts
Boat Parts
Car & Truck Parts
Air Conditioning and Heat
Air Intake & Fuel Delivery
Brakes
Charging & Starting Systems
Computer, Chip, Cruise...
Cooling System
Decals, Emblems, & Detailing
Emission System
Engines & Components
Belts, Pulleys, & Brackets
Block Parts
Camshafts, Lifters & Parts
Complete Engines
Crankshafts & Parts
Cylinder Heads & Parts
Engine Bearings
Engine Rebuilding Kits
Motor Mounts
Oil Filler Caps
Oil Pans
Oil Pumps
Other
Pistons, Rings, Rods & Parts
Rocker Arms & Parts
Timing Components
Vacuum Pumps
Valve Covers
Valves & Parts
Exhaust
Exterior
Filters
Gaskets
Gauges
Glass
Ignition System
Interior
Lighting & Lamps
Other Parts
Safety & Security
Salvage Parts Cars
Suspension & Steering
Transmission & Drivetrain
Turbos, Nitrous,...
Wheels, Tires & Parts
Car Audio, Video
Manuals & Literature
Motorcycle Parts
Other Vehicle Parts
Personal Watercraft Parts
Racing Parts
Services & Installation
Snowmobile Parts
Vintage Car & Truck Parts
Wholesale Lots

They started the age of mass-production using all-metal machine tools and are regarded as one of the seminal buildings of the British Industrial Revolution. They are also the site of the first stationary steam engines used by the Admiralty.

Since 2003 English Heritage has been undertaking a detailed survey of the buildings and the records relating to the machines.

History

The Royal Navy had evolved by the middle of the eighteenth century into what has been described as the greatest industrial power in the western world. The Admiralty and Navy Board began a programme of modernisation of dockyards at Portsmouth and Plymouth, and by the start of the war with Revolutionary France possessed the most up-to-date fleet facilities in Europe.

The Dock system at Portsmouth has its origins in the work of Edmund Dummer in the 1690s. He constructed a series of basins, and wet and dry docks. Alterations were made to these in the course of the eighteenth century. One of the basins had become redundant by 1770, and it was proposed to use this as a sump into which all the water from the other facilities could drain. The water was pumped out by a series of horse-operated chain pumps.

In 1795, Brigadier-General Sir Samuel Bentham was appointed by the Admiralty, the first and only Inspector General of Naval Works with the task of continuing this modernisation, and in particular the introduction of steam power and mechanising the production processes in the dockyard. His office employed several specialists as his assistants - Mechanist (engineer), Draughtsmen, Architect, Chemist, Clerks, etc. The Inspector General's office was responsible for the introduction at Portsmouth of plant for the rolling of copper plates for sheathing ships, and for forging-mills for the production of metal parts used in the construction of vessels. They also introduced similar modernisation at the other Naval dockyards.

By 1797 work had started on building additional dry docks and on deepening the basins, and Bentham realised that the existing drainage system would not cope with the increased demand. He installed a steam engine designed by a member of his staff, James Sadler, in 1798 which, as well as working the chain pumps, drove woodworking machinery and a pump to take water from a well round the dockyard for fire-fighting purposes. This well was some 400 ft away, and the pumps operated by a horizontal reciprocating wooden spear housed in a tunnel running from the engine house to the top of the well. The Sadler engine was a house-built table-engine and installed in a single storey engine house with integral boiler; it replaced one of the horse-drives to the chain pumps. This engine was replaced in 1807 in the same house by another more powerful table engine made by Fenton, Murray and Wood of Leeds, and in turn in 1830 by Maudslay beam engine.

Read more at Wikipedia.org