The Folkestone Leas Lift is an incline railway that can take passengers from the seafront to The Leas at the top of the cliffs. This dated building is at the foot of the cliffs and houses a shop and waiting room.
The whole unit is a listed building and is described thus in the English Heritage web site:
"The Leas Lift, including Waiting Rooms, Brake Houses and Railings II Water balance lift. 1st lift 1885 with 2nd lift added in 1890. Built for the Folkestone Lift Company by Messrs Waygood and Co. This was only the 3rd lift in England to be built operating by water balance. Waiting rooms of 1885 on lower Sandgate Road frontage. Built of brick with tiled roof. 1 storey comprises central entrance with wooden pediment, verandah of 6 wooden piers and central cambered 6 panelled door flanked by casement windows. on each side are pavilion style waiting rooms with hipped roofs and central tall 4-light canted bays under thick wooden bargeboards. Left side pavilion has 2 casements. Right side pavilion has 1 casement and 6 panelled door approached up a flight of stone steps. Behind the waiting rooms rise 4 tracks 164 feet high, only the 2 1885 tracks being operational since the 1960s. Each track has an iron, wood and glazed car. At the top of the track are 3 concrete and glazed brake houses. The Leas frontage has a section of cast iron spear railings with dograil and urn principals. The lift operates as follows: once the lower car was loaded the toll collector contacted the brakesman who also had the job of supervising the loading of the upper car. The weight of the loaded car approximated five tons and to set them in motion the brake was released and the cistern valves opened allowing whatever water was necessary into the tank of the upper car until its ballast outweighed that of the lower car and its passengers. On arrival at the bottom, the toll collector released the water into a drain running onto the beach, although in later years, the water was pumped back up to the top for re-use."
Source: (
visit link)
===================================================================
===================================================================
Originally installed in 1885, in Folkestone, Kent, the Grade II Listed Leas Lift is a funicular railway which carries passengers between the seafront and the promenade. It is one of the oldest water lifts in the UK.
The lift operates using water and gravity and is controlled from a small cabin at the top of the cliff. It has carried more than 50 million people since it opened, in a process that is especially energy efficient. The lift has a very small carbon footprint as it emits no pollution and recycles all of the water used to drive the cars.
In June 2009, Shepway District Council’s lease ran out and it was decided that the lift was too expensive to run.[5] Campaigners subsequently protested against the closure of the lift and in April 2010, it was announced that the lift was to be restored.
Restoration works
Crofton Design, the consulting engineers responsible for the Leas Lift restoration, was appointed as lead consultant to provide structural engineering design. Crofton won the ‘Building Structures’ award at the ACE Engineering Excellence Awards in May 2011 and won the ‘Restoration’ award at the ICE Engineering Excellence Awards in June 2011 for their work on the lift. G A Harpers were appointed as the main contractor to carry out the necessary construction work.
The renovation involved replacing the mechanical and electrical wiring and ensuring that all necessary safety standards in the two cars, the control systems and stations, were met. There was also a focus on restoring the associated power pumps that control the lift at the top and bottom stations.
The wheel bearings on the lift cars were all found to be damaged by corrosion so the wheels were re-machined to provide the correct running profile. Additionally, the corroded steelwork support structures within the buried water storage tanks, which were leaking, were inspected and replaced.
Present day
125 years after it first opened, the operation of the Folkestone lift has been taken over by The Folkestone Leas Lift Community Interest Company. The company operates the lift on behalf of the community as a non-profit-making organisation and has opened the attraction as a living museum.
Text source: (
visit link)