In those times, there was no national electric grid you could tap into.
If you wanted electricity, you had to generate it yourself.
Most people did not have the technological knowhow or the inclination to light their houses with electric lamps.
Even if some of them did, they probably didnt have the money to bring their desires to fruition.
But William Armstrong was an inventor and a wealthy industrialist.
On one of these, he installed a hydraulic engine which drove the many hydraulic machineries in his house.
A year later,in 1870, Armstrong installed a dynamo creating the worlds first domestic hydroelectric plant.
Electricity from this plant was used to power Cragside and the many farm buildings on the estate.
The first room to be electrically lighted was the gallery.
Only a single arc lamp hung from the ceiling.
Later, the entire house was wired for electricity.
A screw turbine was installed in 2014.
Armstrongs lifelong love affair with water began when he was very young.
William Armstrong
Armstrong became a successful businessman manufacturing hydraulic cranes.
On average, Armstrongs company manufactured one hundred cranes per year.
By the 1880s, his company had expanded into ship building.
Armstrong planted over seven million trees and shrubs around his estate, appreciablychanging the climatein this corner of Northumberland.
After Lord Armstrongs death in 1900, the family fortune was lost and the house was deserted.
In 1940, Cragside was taken overby the Armyand billeted as part of the war effort.
When they left, the property was linked up to the national grid.
The house wasopened to the publicfor the first time in 1979.
Leading image of Cragside byDavid Nicholls/Flickr
The original hydropower cylinders on the Northumberland estate’s grounds from Victorian times.
The original hydropower cylinders on the grounds which Lord Armstrong used to power the estate.
Photo credit:David Nicholls/Flickr
