water

A few more water pumps powered by water wheels from a folder where they accumulate. Leitholme (Scottish Borders). This was marked as a hydraulic ram, appearing between 1858 and 1906, but turned out to contain a water wheel pump with another motor driven pump, both attached to same outlet...

I dropped by here on the off chance that a water turbine, last pictured in 1982, was still there - but it wasn’t and the building is now just an empty playground for local children. Nevertheless here are some pictures since there don’t seem to be any from the last few decades. History. The site...

Alwen Water Scheme Filter House, Cerrigydrudion - August 2026 The Alwen Water Scheme is a reservoir and water treatment works built between 1911 and 1920 to provide potable water to the Wirral and parts of Liverpool. The scheme originated in 1907 with a parliamentary bill promoted by the...

I’ve had this one marked as a water-powered site on Google maps so long the pin can no longer be deleted. The reason I never bothered to stop before was that its such an obvious place that it was bound to be empty, which it is. Then passing through one day the road ahead was blocked and I...

According to old maps a former grain mill on the Stradey Estate just outside Llanelli was converted sometime before 1913 to provide electricity, presumably for Stradey Castle. I haven’t found any information or previous pictures, but it seemed likely to contain a water turbine. It’s a small...

Another from the backlog - a little rural mill said to date from ca. 1800, but other than that I’ve found no useful information. Photos are phone and, as usual, are literally a summary of what’s inside and how it worked. The ca. 1900 map below shows a separate kiln - the building is still...

This is similar to the previous mill in Wexford (Mullinderry) in that there was something to find, albeit not what I was expecting. It’s just called ‘flour mill’ on maps so in the absence of any other information I’ve named it after the local township - Irish townships are like parishes in...

Another explored for posterity - I knew it was a wreck, but occasionally there are interesting things to find. The mills themselves are found by scanning old OS maps, and some, like this one, also have an entry in the heritage list although it’s usually quite generic: “The ivy-enveloped shell...

Working through a backlog of old Irish - actually UK at that time - mills. According to the national heritage survey of Eire, which records some of the older buildings, this one was mostly a wreck in 2004. Unusually for this rather useless survey there are even three pictures of the inside...

This was built as a large grain mill in 1800 but is shown as a maltings by 1900 on old maps. It’s been been disused since the 70s and is now mostly a shell. I was interested in Duninga because the original pair of water wheels were replaced by a water turbine at some stage and I wondered if it...

There were once many mills on the River Nore as it winds through Kilkenny City. At least 17 are shown on ca. 1900 OS maps, including grain mills, textile mills, woodworking mills, stone mills, a paper mill and a bone crushing mill. What these all have in common is that they were originally...

I first looked at Birks Mill about 5 years ago but didn’t get to see what I was mainly interested in, the water turbine which powered it. At that time the mill was being used to store mostly non mill-related bric-a-brac and old cars and was due to be demolished. Googling it again recently I was...

There are two water turbines in Clapham at the edge of the Yorkshire Dales according to https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1471367?section=official-list-entry. One powered the Ingleborough Estate sawmill and, from 1893, generated electricity for the village at night...

Linton Falls is a small hydroelectric power station near Grassington which was recently renovated and is now producing electricity again. Read all about it on the plaque outside: When a new turbine is installed sometimes the old one is left behind, although not in this case according to the...

Some of the also-rans from looking at watermills in Cumbria. This sort of post is really aimed at people googling a particular mill to find out something about it since there aren’t any pictures for most of them. The only qualification for inclusion is that there be at least something mill-like...