The Wonderful Barrel was the world’s first hot and cold drinks dispenser. It was invented in 1696 by Henry Winstanley, in Saffron Walden, he was a notable local inventor who worked at Audley End for a time and who is most famous for his building the original Eddystone Lighthouse in the same year.The Wonderful Barrel was immensely popular and first installed at “Winstanley’s Water-Works”, a water sculpture garden that Winstanley set up in Piccadilly, London. Such dispensers are now common, but the original concept was invented in Essex!
Drawn by pupil at Flitch Green Academy , Little Dunmow.
