Shand, Mason and Co: 1858 Fire Pump

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Note: This is a sub-section of Shand, Mason and Co.

"Following a number of fires in Banchory in 1857, the Town Council instructed the Town Clerk to purchase a fire appliance. The Shand and Mason pump arrived in 1858/9. It came with twelve galvanised buckets. By 1885 it was replaced by a "steam appliance" having been considered to be both out of date and beyond repair.

In 1964 Banchory Town Council sold the pump to George Strathdee of Cults and on his death the remains of the pump languished in sheds around Banchory ending up in a barn on Gavin Coutts’ farm near Banchory. A local resident, Alistair Murison, had kept track of the fire pump and made great efforts to encourage a community group to undertake its restoration. In 2015 the late Jim Thomson, a Banchory Rotarian, invited his local Club to take on the restoration project. At this time the pump remains were owned by a local fireman, Dennis Scott. Dennis agreed that he would pass what was left of the fire pump to the Rotary Club of Banchory-Ternan as long as the Club undertook to have it restored. This the Club did in 2015/16 and in addition arranged that after restoration, and with the full backing of Aberdeenshire Council, it would be displayed in the Banchory Museum so that all could view this unique relic of Banchory's past.

The Committee charged with the restoration owe a great deal of gratitude to various people who so willingly assisted with the project. Tom Ironside of Finzean donated the different types of wood for the main box structures and oversaw Garry Murray, a local joiner, who replicated all the wooden parts and used the project as his "essay piece" for entry to the Wrights and Coopers one of the Seven Incorporated Trades of Aberdeen. We are greatly indebted to Tom and Garry for their excellent work. The Committee was then recommended by the National Museums for Scotland to approach Ian Grant a wheelwright and carriage builder in Cupar, Fife. Ian undertook to make the four new wheels using the metalwork from the old wheels, manage the reconstruction of the pump with all the other metal parts which had been saved, and have all the painting completed. The actual pump mechanism was restored by Rotarian Richard Bridger.

The pump operates by drawing water from a convenient local source at low pressure and is powered by three men on each side of the appliance alternately working the handles.”

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