Hinkelstein waterworks

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Listed machine hall of the Hinkelstein waterworks
Cast iron lantern of the machine hall with a copper mermaid figure

The Hinkelstein waterworks is a conveyor system for groundwater in Frankfurt am Main . It was built between 1890 and 1893 as the third and largest groundwater collection system in the Frankfurt city forest under the direction of city planning officer William Heerlein Lindley and went into operation in 1894. In 1924 and 1964 the wells were renewed. The systems have been operated by Hessenwasser GmbH & Co. KG since 2001 . The Hinkelstein waterworks pumps around 18,000 cubic meters daily with 10 wells between 66 and 143 meters deep . Only the listed machine house has been preserved from the original system . It belongs to the route of industrial culture Rhein-Main .

Surname

The name Hinkelstein is an old field name . It goes back to a large menhir at the western end of the Hinkelsteinschneise, which runs south of the Main Railway in an east-west direction. At the beginning of the 19th century the menhir was dismantled in order to use its individual parts as landmarks in the city forest. The area around the Hinkelstein was on the extreme western border of the city forest. The Hinkelstein forester's house was built in 1731 to protect it . The surrounding forest, the Hinkelsteinrauschen , formed one of the five districts of the Frankfurt city forest in the so-called Unterwald between the forester's house Unterschweinstiege and Kelsterbach .

Architecture and technology

In 1884 the engineer William Heerlein Lindley, who built the Niederrad sewage treatment plant at the time , discovered abundant groundwater resources in the Frankfurt city forest. In 1885 the first waterworks at Oberforsthaus was built, and in 1888 the Goldstein waterworks . Both systems obtained the groundwater in a suction system from many pipe wells, each with a diameter of 50 millimeters, arranged at a short distance. Lindley also retained this design principle for the Hinkelstein waterworks. Since the groundwater level in the west of the city forest was only 13 to 17 meters deep, an accessible tunnel was built along the 210 wells, which were lowered every 10 meters . The individual well pipes consisted of 70 millimeter thick copper pipes, which were sunk 14 meters deep into the water-bearing layers with the help of a casing pipe . A 300 to 450 millimeter wide suction pipe ran in the canal.

At the end of the canal there was a 15.50 meter deep shaft with the domed machine hall made of red Main sandstone above it . The rotunda of the machine house, with an outer diameter of 12 meters and a clear width of 11.2 meters, is built according to the model of Roman architecture. The outer wall of the drum is structured by 10 buttresses , over the indicated capitals of which a cornice with a serrated ornament runs. In the interior, the buttresses continue as consoles. They carry an iron ring anchor , the turnbuckles of which are visible as flower-shaped ornaments on the buttresses. The walls between the buttresses are provided with three-part neo-Romanesque windows divided by columns. They give the dome a compact appearance. Ten dormers with arched windows and pointed gables are embedded in the dome shell, the roof of the dome is covered with glazed tiles. The dome is of a cast iron, glass lantern crowned, the tip of a copper -driven Figurine a Mermaid forms. The entrance to the engine house is a risalit in front of the facade .

The shaft of the machine hall accommodated the two vertically installed composite condensation steam pumps for operating the suction well system. They initially produced an average of 12,000 cubic meters a day, which soon increased to 18,000 cubic meters. The delivery height to the elevated tank at the Sachsenhäuser Warte was 35 meters. Two Cornwall boilers with 8 atmospheres overpressure and a circulation water boiler were used as a reserve to supply steam to the pumps . Next to the boiler house was a 30 meter high smoke gas chimney with a clear diameter of one meter. The coal store attached to the boiler house was supplied with a lorry from Schwanheim an der Mainbahn station .

Today, of the above-ground facilities, only the domed house, which is a listed building, has been preserved. From 1924 the outdated small suction wells were replaced by 74 new wells, which were renewed in 1974. Today's system pumps the groundwater from 10 wells between 66 and 143 meters deep. To keep the water table in Frankfurt City Forest constant, be a 1959 on Niederräder built Mainufer conditioning daily up to 30,000 cubic meters of water in the bottom Main infiltrated .

In the 1970s it became clear that the groundwater flow at the Hinkelstein is polluted by the nearby Frankfurt airport . Urea- containing de-icing agents and cleaning agents that were not carefully collected polluted the floor with nitrates and chlorinated hydrocarbons . Since the 1990s, extensive renovation measures at the airport in connection with the construction of activated carbon filter systems have ensured the protection of the Hinkelstein waterworks.

literature

Web links

Commons : Wasserwerk Hinkelstein  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hinckelstein. Hessian field names. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on June 10, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Hinkelstein Forestry House. Historical local lexicon for Hesse (as of March 13, 2014). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on June 10, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Unterweinstiege . Historical local dictionary for Hesse (as of September 3, 2014). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on June 10, 2019 .

Coordinates: 50 ° 3 ′ 48.8 ″  N , 8 ° 33 ′ 28.5 ″  E