Cambridge Museum of Technology

The Cambridge Museum of Technology stands beside the River Cam in the city of Cambridge. It occupies a former sewage pumping and waste destructor station built in 1894, now protected as a scheduled monument. The site includes green spaces for picnics and a relaxed family atmosphere. Visitors find audio-visual displays, hands-on exhibits and children’s activities alongside museum displays and historic buildings. The Victorian Pumping Station shows 19th-century engineering with its original machinery. Exhibitions on local industries reveal a different side of Cambridge’s history beyond the colleges. The museum celebrates the achievements of local industries and the people who worked in them. It features two Hathorn Davey steam engines, one still running on steam weekends. These engines once lifted 250,000 gallons of sewage per hour until 1968. The site also includes two National gas engines added in 1909 to handle heavier rainfall. A Babcock & Wilcox boiler installed in the 1920s provided extra steam when waste burning was insufficient. An electric pump added in 1937 helped cope with storm surges from new housing estates. A visitor finds the Victorian Pumping Station with its operational steam engines and tall octagonal chimney. The print shop building once sterilised hospital linen using waste steam. Other exhibits include a working steam winch, a narrow gauge railway for ash removal and a Linotype machine in the print room. Collections also feature various engines, electrical apparatus and old printing technology. The site offers a quiet spot by the river with space to explore the museum’s industrial past.