Windpump

A windpump stood beside the stream which flows at the end of Rylands Hey - the stream is one of several tributaries which flow northwards into the Arrowe Brook. A windpump is installed for one of two purposes - to irrigate land or to drain land. This Greasby windpump was installed around 1945 by Mr Morath to take water from the stream to irrigate his field which was a market garden. The entrance to the field was in Wood Lane.

Greasby had many market gardens and one of the main crops was flowers for the Liverpool Cazneau Street market.

The windpump at the end of Rylands Hey is believed to have been a typical irrigation installation - a sump or chamber is dug close to a stream and a trench is cut to divert water from the stream to the sump. Often the sumps were lined with concrete rings. The trench typically had a pipe with a grille to keep rubbish out of the sump. The windpump is constructed directly over the sump and draws water which it pumps to a storage tank. From the tank the water is used to irrigate the land.

The field is no longer a market garden. Houses were built on it around the 1970s. The name of the new road on which the houses stand, Dryfield Close, is a reminder of the field which needed irrigating.