Waterwheels - some curiosities

Children in the Isle of Man have an unusual, if somewhat hazardous, item of playground equipment available to them. In Silverdale Glen, near Ronaldsway Airport, there is a roundabout with a full complement of horses, cars and motorbikes (fig. I ). This is driven by a waterwheel which was originally used in the Foxdale mines, about four miles north of Silverdale Glen. The photograph unfortunately shows nothing of the wheel, as it is surrounded by a stout wire cage, but it can be seen to be quite small. It is about six or seven feet in diameter and eighteen inches wide, and is of the pitch backshot type. The water is led from the adjacent boating pool through an underground pipe, and then up a vertical pipe into a horizontal channel from which it is discharged at the top of the wheel. The discharge point is so arranged that the wheel rotates 'backwards', that is in the opposite direction to the flow of water in the channel.

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The flow of water is controlled by a lever projecting from the side of the casing of the verticaI pipe, and is accessible to the public. Anyone can operate the wheel and roundabout, without supervision. It starts quite slowly, but, having built up momentum, it takes some time to stop, as there is no brake. It is not certain when it was installed, but it was clearly before our modem preoccupation with health'n'safety!

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The Silverdale wheel is of the same type as the great Lady lsabella wheel at Laxey (fig. 2). Although the Laxey wheel is ten times the size, the configuration of supply pipe, tower and channel is identical. The backshot arrangement has structural advantages for a large wheel, but these are not so obvious for a small one. Another wheel of this type may be seen working at the Kew Bridge Steam Museum, where it is geared down to operate a three cylinder plunger pump. The surprising point here is that this wheel is dated 1902, at a time when one would have expected a turbine to be used. It was in the same year, for example, that Rudyard Kipling had a Gilkes turbine installed at Batemans to drive a generator for electricity supply. Also in that year at the Horton Hospital at Epsom three-cylinder plunger pumps were driven by an electric motor supplied by a power station in the same building. An example of the type of pump used there may be seen at the Rural Life Centre at Tilford.

Children in the Isle of Man have an unusual, if somewhat hazardous, item of playground equipment available to them. In Silverdale Glen, near Ronaldsway Airport, there is a roundabout with a full complement of horses, cars and motorbikes (fig. I ). This is driven by a waterwheel which was originally used in the Foxdale mines, about four miles north of Silverdale Glen. The photograph unfortunately shows nothing of the wheel, as it is surrounded by a stout wire cage, but it can be seen to be quite small. It is about six or seven feet in diameter and eighteen inches wide, and is of the pitch backshot type. The water is led from the adjacent boating pool through an underground pipe, and then up a vertical pipe into a horizontal channel from which it is discharged at the top of the wheel. The discharge point is so arranged that the wheel rotates 'backwards', that is in the opposite direction to the flow of water in the channel.

Reprinted courtesy Surrey Industrial History Group, Newsletter 130, November 2002.

Alan Thomas