STEAM ENGINES AND WATERWHEELS

[Stanley]

This is the 1892 OS of the Clough Area. If you look closely you can see the present entrance to the culvert which was then the overflow sluice for the lodge. To the West you'll see a head-race from the corner of the lodge to what must have been the wheelhouse. There is a short, open piece of tail-race to the north of the wheel and this must have rejoined the main culvert. Note that for the waterwheel to work, the level of the culvert at this point had to be at least as low as the tail-race from the wheel and this explains why the culvert dives so deep at the clow out of the dam.

[David Whipp]

Thanks Stanley.

I think that puts the head-race in the location reported in the interpretation board, but they may not have the precise spot for the wheelhouse.

What course do you think the tail-race would take to get the water back into the beck? Underneath the mill? There's little room between the northern wall of the mill and the other buildings shown on the map.

[Stanley]

It would join the culvert under the mill yard. There is a short length of open race shown. The culvert itself would be as deep as was possible to give the maximum head of water at the wheel.

[Stanley]

Click to enlarge. This is the 1892 OS map of the Corn Mill and dam. The cartographers made a mistake when they designated the waterway through the baking half way down the big dam as a weir. It isn't, it's an overflow from the dam to relieve pressure in times of high water, it would almost certainly have a sluice gate on it so the dam could be emptied fore maintenance. They made the same mistake at the small original round dam next to the mill, this too was an overflow and sluice. The large dam was built by William Bracewell in about 1850 when he rented the Corn Mill. The head race would originally flow from the weir in Butts directly into this small dam. The bigger dam gave more storage capacity and made the mill less vulnerable to fluctuating flows. The foot path shown from Gisburn Road to the mill is typical of the period. The mill owners needed access to the head race and source so this pre-dates 1850 by a long way. Also worth noting is the 'trough' marked opposite the end of Skipton Road. This is the one buried in the wall of the old Board School.

[Stanley]

Springs Dam in 1892. It was very important to both Calf Hall Shed and Butts Mill as it was used to store water in drought times and let it down as required by opening the clow. As far as I can discover, it was dug or at least improved by William Bracewell as the owner of Butts Mill. Bracewell had slipped up here because even though he had a lease on the dam from the owners, he had no control over the Riparian rights on Calf Hall Beck between the dam and his mill. This was what allowed the CHSC to build Calf Hall Shed in 1889 even though Butts was under different ownership, John Eastwood had leased it from the Craven Bank. In 1903 CHSC bought Butts Mill from the bank and so became lessors of Springs Dam. From then on there are constant entries in the minute books for work done on the dam and its water supplies including the controversial diverting of water from the Dark Hill Well down to the dam. Springs is a good example of how important water supplies were to the steam mills and is of course largely forgotten now.

[Stanley]

In the days when small towns like Barlick were largely self-contained, they all had a small foundry like Ouzledale. So much of the technology depended on Cast Iron. This small foundry at the old sawmill at Ouzledale Provided most of the town's needs from 1890 onwards and eventually it became the basis for the modern Ouzledale Foundry at Long Ing which survives to this day.

[Stanley]

The Saxon engine at Times Mill Middleton. 50 ropes, 2,500hp.
From The Black Book. Times Mill Company, Avon Mill Middleton. 2,500hp Four cylinder triple expansion by George Saxon, 1908. 28"HP, 44" IP and 2 X 48"LP. 5ft 6" stroke, 200psi, 60rpm, 28ft flywheel, 50 ropes, Corliss valves on all cylinders. Air pumps driven from the crossheads.

[Stanley]

Did you notice the curved walls at the end of the engine house? Only place I have ever seen a curved wall in an engine house is at Woodhouse Mill, Todmorden. Here it is in 1987.

[Stanley]

The engine house at Woodhouse from the road.

[Stanley]

Bit of a mystery. Looks like Bancroft but it's an unknown engine in Colne.

[Stanley]

Another view of the Bancroft twin in Colne.

[Stanley]

We tend to forget steam engines on the road. Here's a 1918 Stanley steam car model 735B.

[Bodger]

a more modern version
http://www.steamcar.net/fox.html

[Stanley]

Tidy conversion Bodge. The term 'chauffeur' comes from the early steam cars, literally the 'steam maker' or stoker. For many years a steam car held the world speed record.

[Stanley]

I haven't got a picture for this one but worth recording that West Marton Dairies ran on a steam engine until the advent of electricity to rural areas in the 1950s. By the time I was there from 1957 onward it was electrified and the engine had been taken out.

[Stanley]

Albion engine at Earby.

[Stanley]

Detail of the governor rod and Wilby regulator on the Albion engine.

[chinatyke]

Waterwheels come in all sizes. Here is one near Bama, Guangxi. It is mainly constructed from bamboo and even the centre shaft and bearings are made of wood. I don't know what it is used for, but I suspect it was the power source for threshing hemp which is grown in this area. It was strange seeing cannabis plants growing wild on the road verges. According to Wikipedia the word canvas is derived from cannabis, the hemp plant. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp






.

[Tripps]

Seems that hemp is a miracle material.

[Tizer]

Chinatyke, The wheel doesn't seem to have anything to resist water flow except for its thin bamboo so I don't see how it could have extracted mechanical energy from the water. Perhaps the wheel was powered by something else and its function was to strip the fibres from the hemp that was soaked (retted) in the stream first?

Tripps, graphene could be made from anything with a lot of carbon in it, which means from all sorts of plant materials. Hemp bast just happens to be a cheap source of carbon. I'm surprised they aren't using the bast in a biomass burner to generate heat energy.

Hemp used to be grown in Britain and there's archaeological evidence for hemp mills such as this from North Devon:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/content/arti ... ture.shtml
A lot was used for rope-making and Mrs Tiz and I made a rope a few weeks ago at Morwellham Quay on a short domestic type rope walk of the kind that some farms would have had. Of course much of the rope from there would have gone to the naval dockyard at Plymouth. Our rope was made from sisal because hemp isn't readily available there now.

[chinatyke]

Hi Tizer. You could be right. I assumed the paddles had been removed. We had no English speakers with us who could give us an explanation, and it wasn't turning when we visited.

[Stanley]

Interesting pic China and the absence of paddles intrigued me as well. Marvellous stuff Bamboo isn't it. I don't know whether it is still the case but some hemp was grown in the UK until recently as it was used in bank note paper.

[Tizer]

`Better processes dispel uncertainties of hemp'
Farmers' Weekly, 24 January 2008 09:00
"Hemp has had a mixed press over recent years, but changes to the harvesting and processing of the crop could see it increase in popularity. The area of contracted hemp is predicted to jump from 2000 to 5000 acres in 2008 and hit 20,000 acres by 2011. At least that is what Hemcore director, and Essex farmer, Dan Squier reckons. `We believe the markets are there, the production capacity is there, and we're soon to have the new factory at Halesworth in Suffolk, which will have a 7t/hr capacity, compared with 1-1.5t/hr at the old Maldon site.` "
http://www.fwi.co.uk/articles/24/01/200 ... f-hemp.htm
(I believe Hemcore was taken over by a company called Limecore which makes building materials containing hemp fibre.)

Also:
Guidance: Industrial fibre crops: business opportunities for farmers
From: Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, 13 June 2013
"How to get a licence for hemp and other industrial fibre crops and details about the Fibre Processing Aid Scheme and the Energy Crops Scheme."
https://www.gov.uk/industrial-fibre-crops

[Stanley]

No mention of bank note paper.... I have an idea that there was once a market for hemp seed.

[chinatyke]

Interesting pic China and the absence of paddles intrigued me as well. Marvellous stuff Bamboo isn't it.

When the Kingsway (Wallasey) Tunnel was being bored under the Mersey, a geological anomaly was encountered which could have led to serious flooding in the tunnel. It was a sand or sandstone deposit which stretched upwards towards the river bottom.The tunneling work was stopped until a solution could be found. How could they reinforce it but still allow the boring machine to drill through? Their solution was to insert bamboo poles filled with concrete instead of steel re-bar. Bamboo has terrific strength and is widely used for scaffolding here.