• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Engineering Designer Magazine

Engineering Designer

  • Home
  • Technology
  • Education
  • Sustainability
  • Materials
  • Medical
  • Construction
  • Advertise
  • iED
You are here: Home / Construction / Apprentices help to engineer a bright future for historic Derbyshire gasworks

Apprentices help to engineer a bright future for historic Derbyshire gasworks

February 7, 2023 by Geordie Torr

The restoration team at a historic Derbyshire Victorian gasworks are on track to complete an important part of their major renovation programme, with help from nearby neighbours JCB.

Engineers and apprentices from JCB World Headquarters at Rocester and a number of other JCB factories have recreated vital parts of the Sudbury Gasworks engineering centrepiece. The first phase has now been installed at the village-centre site.

Advertisement

Sudbury Gasworks Restoration Trust trustee Brice Bozier, who is also an engineer at JCB, has been working with a team of engineers and eight apprentices to recreate the special metal frame that held the ovens used in the gas-production process.

A JCB Loadall telescopic handler has now lifted the frame into place and the apprentices are busy working on crafting doors, pipes and a furnace hatch to complete the project, ready for the grand unveiling of the gasworks on 20 May.

Advertisement

The original Victorian mechanism, which dates back to 1874, was an impressive feat of engineering, introducing coal into a brick oven, capturing natural gas that the baked coal released and then piping it to nearby Sudbury Hall and village homes.

‘This is a vast project which requires a lot of specialist knowledge and skills and it is fantastic that JCB has really got behind the project,’ Brozier said. ‘Our engineers have used CAD technology to create blueprints of the gasworks’ machinery and now the designs have been brought to life by the apprentices, who have crafted the retort frame. Involving the apprentices is really a win-win situation for us and for JCB – the apprentices get hands-on experience of design and engineering, while the trust is able to take a step closer to our goal of creating a living history museum and community venue.’

Advertisement

Anyone interested in supporting the restoration is invited to a volunteer recruitment day on 25 March. To discover more, click here.  

Filed Under: Construction, Education

Primary Sidebar

SUBSCRIBE And get a FREE Magazine

Want a FREE magazine each and every month jam-packed with the latest engineering and design news, views and features?

ED Update Magazine

Simply let us know where to send it by entering your name and email below. Immediate access.

Trending

Proposed international standard could revolutionise industrial design

Engineers design high-performing heat exchanger with a twist

Robotic dog mimics mammals for superior mobility on land and in water

MIT engineers create metamaterial that is both strong and stretchy

Global survey reveals use of AI for design of the built environment

New 3D-printing method enables colour-changing, stress-responsive materials

Physical cloaking works like a disappearing act for structural defects

Engineering Council officially launches new safety standard for higher risk buildings

Tomorrow’s Engineers Week dates announced

Norelem launches competition for engineering students  

Footer

About Engineering Designer

Engineering Designer is the quarterly journal of the Insitution of Engineering Designers.

It is produced by the IED for our Members and for those who have an interest in engineering and product design, as well as CAD users.

Click here to learn more about the IED.

Other Pages

  • Contact us
  • About us
  • Privacy policy
  • Terms
  • Institution of Engineering Designers

Search

Tags

ied

Copyright © 2025 · Site by Syon Media