Steam Pumping Station of Barbadinhos – Water Museum

The Barbadinhos Reservoir was the final reservoir for the water transported by the Alviela aqueduct. It was constructed in the fence of an extinct Franciscan convent, occupied between 1747 and 1834 by the religious order of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. A steam powered pumping station was built next to the reservoir, to pump the water from the Alviela aqueduct into the city, and remained active from 1880 to 1928. The station consisted of three main areas: the coal deposit, the boiler area and a warehouse with the steam engines. For the extraction of the smoke from the coal burning there was a large chimney, 40 meters high and 1.8 meters of interior diameter, that later was demolished. After several years of inactivity, the building was restored in 1950 to house the headquarters of the Water Museum. Although the boilers and the chimney were missing, the steam engines and respective pumps made by the French manufacturer E. Windsor & Fils were properly preserved. They became part of the museum’s heritage collection as excellent artefacts from the industrial era. In 2010 the steam lift station building was listed as a Complex of Public Interest.