Object of the Week: The 90-year-old Gardner 4T5 at the Anson Engine Museum in Cheshire

This article originally appeared on Culture24.

For our latest Object of the Week, we bring you one of the most popular exhibits at the engine museum in Poynton

This mighty four-cylinder engine was port-built - designed as a marine engine – by L Gardner & Sons between January and March 1925.  It is Engine No 26302, operating at 400 rpm, with a bore of 8.5 inches and a stroke of 9.5 inches.

It was part of a generator set built for Klinger Stein Hosiery Mills Ltd at Godmanchester, Huntingdon – later to become Huntingdon Hosiery Mills. It was one of a pair adding extra generating capacity.

Its builders had modest Manchester beginnings. When 28-year-old Lawrence Gardner went into business on his own in 1868, he put up a brass plate outside his Manchester workshop saying “L Gardner, Machinist”.

Little did he know that from these humble beginnings a company would grow whose name would become a byword across the globe whenever marine, stationary or automotive diesels are mentioned.

The company later moved to Barton Works in Patricroft, Manchester, where it manufactured Diesel engines until the 1990s.

• You can try to beat the record for creating the 50-piece puzzle jigsaw of the 4T5 on the museum's website. The current record is 4 minutes 29 seconds.

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More Objects of the Week:

A mystery terracotta head found on a tomb in an Ipswich churchyard

The gorse which grows thick near a Roman turret on Hadrian's Wall

Wallis Simpson's nightdress at the Allhallows Museum of Lace in Honiton

Source: http://www.culture24.org.uk/history-and-heritage/transport-and-industry/art531853-object-of-the-week-the-90-year-old-gardner-4t5-at-the-anson-engine-museum-in-cheshire