Egg-ended Boiler

An early type of boiler, consisting of a large water-filled vessel that would sit atop a brick structure. The structure beneath contained a furnace and flues that carried the hot exhaust gases from the furnace under the boiler and out through a chimney, heating the water as it went. Boilers like this were common in the middle of the nineteenth century.

This boiler was found at Thomas Hudson and Company's Sheepford Boiler Works where it was installed as a water tank. The boiler is unlikely to have been made by Hudson's as more modern types of boilers were coming into common use by the time Hudson's was founded in the 1870s.