This is a chance to view the oldest preserved working steam engine in the world.

Dartmouth-born engineer Thomas Newcomen (1664-1729) designed and installed the first practical and successful steam engine, used initially for pumping water out of coal mines.

It was moved and rebuilt several times before ending up in Hawkesbury Junction, Warwickshire pumping water into a canal, where it retired from work in 1913. In 1964, to celebrate the 300th anniversary of Newcomen’s birth, it was reassembled in Dartmouth, the home of its inventor, by the Newcomen Society and renamed the Newcomen Memorial Engine.

The Engine can be viewed working at the Dartmouth Visitor Centre.