Volunteers complete engine renovation and replicate 1890s photo of mining company workers

Volunteers at Blists Hill Victorian Town have completed a project to renovate a historic engine in a prime location at the entrance to Blists Hill Victorian Town.   

The ‘Kinlet’ engine was built in Scotland by Andrew Barclay Sons & Co. Ltd and delivered to the Highley Mining company in Shropshire in 1896. The company sent the locomotive to the Kinlet Colliery a few miles away, and so it became known as the ‘Kinlet’. The Kinlet worked the new branch linking the coal mine to the Severn Valley line for 25 years, before being sold. Eventually, in 1969, it came to Blists Hill Victorian Town. It left again in the 1980s before coming back to the Trust in 1998, this time to Coalbrookdale, for restoration then display. The Friends of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum then paid for the engine to be moved to the new visitor entrance of Blists Hill Victorian Town when it opened in 2009.

Over time, being exposed to the elements, the engine had started to deteriorate, so in early 2025 it was decided to conserve the engines. Volunteers who had recently worked on two Sentinel engines at Coalbrookdale came to Blists Hill Victorian Town to improve the condition of the Kinlet, rubbing the locomotive down, cleaning it and repainting it. Blists Hill’s professional signwriters, father and son Mark and Corum Deakin-Segal, delivered the finishing touch when they painted the engine’s owner and name on its side, using a historic photograph from the Trust’s archives as a guide. That same photo, which shows workers at Highley Mining Company with the Kinlet when it was delivered to them in the 1890s, inspired the six volunteers who worked on the project to seek the help of Blist Hill’s costume team to recreate the original image when they had finished their work.

Kate Cadman, Collections Curator at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, said: “We have a duty to preserve the objects in our collections for our visitors and future generations, so the conservation of the Kinlet engine was an important project. We’re delighted to see the results of the volunteers’ hard work, and our visitors are enjoying seeing the engine as they arrive.”

James Deakin, Volunteers Officer at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, said: “The volunteers on this project have really enjoyed getting stuck in and restoring the Kinlet engine to its former glory. Volunteers are essential to the Trust’s work, and we couldn’t complete projects like this without their help.”

The Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust has several steam-powered engines in its care in Coalbrookdale and at Blists Hill Victorian Town. In 2024 the Trust launched a campaign to raise £100,000 to repair the steam-powered winding engine at Blists Hill Victorian Town so that visitors in the future can see it in operation.

Visitors to Blists Hill Victorian Town can see the Kinlet engine when they enter the town.