Saturday 18 January 2014

Remembering the restoration of Cragside, the world's first hydroelectric house.



 Cragside is a country house in the civil parish of Cartington in Northumberland, England. It was the first house in the world to be lit using hydroelectric power. Built into a rocky hillside above a 4 km² forest garden, it was the country home of Lord Armstrong and has been in the care of the National Trust since 1977.
Cragside, named after Cragend Hill above the house, was built in 1863 as a modest two-storey country lodge, but was subsequently extended to designs by Richard Norman Shaw, transforming it into an elaborate mansion in the Free Tudor style. At one point, the building included an astronomical observatory and a scientific laboratory.

Electricity
 In 1868, a hydraulic engine was installed, with water being used to power labour-saving machines such as laundry equipment, a rotisserie and a hydraulic lift. In 1870, water from one of the estate's lakes was used to drive a Siemens dynamo in what was the world's first hydroelectric power station. The resultant electricity was used to power an arc lamp installed in the Gallery in 1878. The arc lamp was replaced in 1880 by Joseph Swan's incandescent lamps in what Swan considered 'the first proper installation' of electric lighting.
The generators, which also provided power for the farm buildings on the estate, were constantly extended and improved to match the increasing electrical demand in the house.
The Grade I listed[1] house is surrounded by one of Europe's largest rock gardens, a large number of rhododendrons and a large collection of mostly coniferous trees.
The documentary series Abroad Again in Britain by Jonathan Meades focused on Cragside in episode 2 (2005).
In 2007, Cragside reopened after undergoing "total refurbishment."
Cragside was featured during the 21 August 2011 episode of BBC One's Britain's Hidden Heritage programme.


 The Observer, Sunday 1 April 2007 / Restored: the world's first hydroelectric house

William Armstrong had his most brilliant ideas while standing thigh-deep in water. The maverick Victorian inventor, who created the mechanisms that raise Tower Bridge in London and open Newcastle's Swing Bridge, was also a passionate fisherman and came up with the idea of hydraulic power at the age of 24 while trout fishing in the Dee in Dentdale.

This weekend, the largest monument to Armstrong's ingenuity is open to the public again after total refurbishment. Cragside, in Northumberland, was home to Armstrong for 30 years and was the first house in the world to be fitted with hydroelectricity. The incredible gadgets, from the rotating spit in the kitchen to the hydraulic lift, were all powered by a vast water pressure system housed in the basement.

Dubbed the 'palace of a modern magician' by one contemporary visitor, it boasted an early dishwasher, a Turkish bath and hot and cold running water. In completely refitting and rewiring the house for the first time, The National Trust had to commission 500 carbon-filament lamps.

In later life Armstrong described his moment of illumination that day in the river: 'I was lounging idly about, watching an old water-mill, when it occurred to me what a small part of the power of the water was used in driving the wheel, and then I thought how great would be the force of even a small quantity of water if its energy were only concentrated in one column.'

Armstrong became one of the richest men in Europe by inventing and manufacturing the Armstrong gun, a cannon. The son of a corn merchant from Newcastle upon Tyne, he founded one of the world's leading engineering firms, WG Armstrong, which sold hydraulic cranes around the world. He employed more than 20,000 men at his works on the Tyne. In 1869 he expanded the house he had built six years earlier on a country estate in Rothbury. The architect Richard Norman Shaw built Cragside by transforming a modest sporting lodge and Armstrong installed a hydroelectric generator in 1878, having dammed a nearby river to create a lake. He wanted to create a cutting-edge home to show important guests, including the King of Siam, the Shah of Persia, an Afghan prince, and the future King Edward VII and his wife Alexandra.

Armstrong eventually presented the patents for his guns to the British government and was knighted in gratitude in 1859. Then in 1887, Queen Victoria's jubilee year, he became the first engineer to be raised to the peerage, as Baron Armstrong of Cragside. The founder of Newcastle University, he died at Cragside at the age of 90 in 1900.

· Cragside, Rothbury, Northumberland (www.nationaltrust.org.uk))












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