Market Gardening
Turner’s Nursery in Bradwell used this 1920s portable steam boiler to sterilise soil. Superheated steam killed bacteria, viruses weeds and fungi in greenhouses. Steam was used in potting compost as it releases nutritive substances which aid plant growth.
It was made by Clayton and Shuttleworth in
Lincoln, a company established in 1842. From 1845 the company began building steam engines for agricultural use and by 1870 it employed 1,200 people in Lincoln and had branches across Europe. However, by the 1920s, when this device was made, the company had diversified into aircraft and in 1929 it failed. The steriliser is now in the Milton Keynes Museum (see map) and a little over mile away from Nursery Gardens, Bradwell (see screenshot from Google).
