Six-column beam engine

Their cast-iron frames could be built and test-assembled at a factory before delivery, allowing rapid assembly or 'erection' once on site.

Their main advantage was that they avoided the need for complex masonry foundations in their engine house, merely a simple level platform to which the iron frame could be bolted.

Cast iron is weak against bending, and a shallow frame alone would need either rigid masonry support, or would soon fracture.

These were used to drive machinery, as diverse as sugar cane crushing mills,[5] winding engines in coal mines and sawmills.

Many beam engines, working into the late 20th century,[i] were non-rotative and drove vertical water pumps directly.

[2][6] The Cobb's Brewery engine (1825) at Margate was one of a batch built for a sugar plantation in the West Indies, but owing to their bankruptcy before shipping it was sent instead to South America.

Fittings such as the hot well and air pump could be conveniently placed within such a water-tight tank, so that their efflux water was contained.