This mark 4N16 ammonia refrigeration compressor was made in 1960 by L Sterne and Company Limited, an engineering company based in Glasgow. The refrigeration machine was installed at the Fylde Ice and Cold Storage company in Lancashire.

This medium sized four-cylinder ammonia compressor is approximately a metre wide, four metre long and three meters tall. The majority of the machinery is painted white with parts painted green. Each of the cylinders is marked with the words “L Sterne & Co Ltd, The Brown Ironworks, Glasgow, Scotland”.

The 19th century saw the development of mechanical refrigeration through the use of vapour-compression technology, pioneered by chemists and engineers such as Carl von Linde and Thomas Bell Lightfoot. Vapour-compression works by cyclically evaporating refrigerant gases like C02 and ammonia to absorb the surrounding heat of a specific space, piping the gas to another location and then compressing these gases via a condenser to release the heat.

Ammonia refrigeration compressors became integral in many commercial and industrial applications such as international shipping and storage, with the earliest design of commercial ammonia compressors dating back to the 1870s.

This four-cylinder ammonia compressor was the fourth and last iteration of a design developed by L. Sterne and Company Limited during the mid-20th century. The company was founded in 1865 by Philadelphia-born locomotive engineer Louis Sterne, who arrived in the UK having obtained the rights to construct machinery based on a system of refrigeration developed by the American De la Vergne company. L Sterne and Co brought this system to the Leadenhall Market Cold Storage Company in 1888 but would eventually provide refrigeration across the UK including the Royal Albert Docks, Earls Court ice rinks in Liverpool. This particular ammonia compressor was installed at the Fylde Ice and Cold Storage company based in Lancashire, where it helped to produce ice and to refrigerate fish, meat and dairy stores.

L. Sterne and company continued to make important improvements to the design of refrigeration systems and acquired by Prestcold Ltd in 1968.