The lift was designed by a Mr Lucas, a consulting engineer of Great George Street, Westminster and built by the Crossley Brothers of Manchester. The Metropolitan Railway Company of Birmingham supplied two cars designed to run on a Funicular system, in which a cable attached to both cars on the rails would move them up and down a very steep gradient, the ascending and descending vehicles counterbalancing each other. Each car was capable of carrying 20 passengers. The covered-body carriages of the cars were mounted on a triangular sub-frame that housed a water tank. The original hydraulic operating system pumped water through the central pipe by two gas engines, filling the water tank of the upper car. With the weight of this car now much increased, when the brakes were released gravity ensured that the upper car descended, whilst at the same time the lower car with the empty tank ascended. On reaching the bottom, the car’s water tank would be emptied, and the process would begin again with the car now at the top. The gas engines did not prove satisfactory and were replaced in 1879 by coke-burning steam pumps which remained until a major refurbishment in 1934-35 by Hudswell, Clarke & Company. These works included the replacement of the two 19th century cars, with new cars that have changed very little to this day, and the installation of a 90hp electric winding motor replacing the hydraulic system.