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The Pinchbeck Engine is a drainage engine, a rotative beam engine built in 1833 to drain Pinchbeck Marsh, to the north of Spalding, Lincolnshire, in England. Until it was shut down in 1952, the engine discharged into the Blue Gowt which joins the River Glen at Surfleet Seas End.
The chimney was demolished in 1952, and no actions were taken to preserve the boiler, which is no longer in a fit state to be used. The engine is a static exhibit, which can be rotated by an electric motor for demonstration purposes.
The engine is gear-coupled to a single scoop wheel in an adjacent compartment. There are 40 paddles around the circumference of the wheel, which could lift a maximum of of water per minute through an lift. The annual effort varied between tons of water lifted, and . Typically the engine was operated for around 180 days a year and an engine man was permanently retained, living on the site.
The boiler dates from 1895 and is a twin furnace Lancashire boiler, delivering . It consumed around of coal per hour. Coal supplies were originally brought by barge, but after the land was successfully drained a railway line was laid from Spalding to Boston, and coals were delivered to a nearby goods facility. They were then transported on a very short narrow gauge railway line in colliery-style tubs. The motive power for this appears to have been human. One of the tubs and a metre or so of line is displayed at the museum.
The engine is said to be the earliest 'A'-frame engine still in situ, the longest-working beam engine in the Fens, and the last in use.
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