3 ms·
There was a time in the UK when waterwheels were all the rage. It is hard to imagine today but there was a time when rivers in wool making areas were slowed dow
by Theodores 8y ago
There was a time in the UK when waterwheels were all the rage. It is hard to imagine today but there was a time when rivers in wool making areas were slowed down to no longer flow due to the amount of water wheels present. The external effects of the water wheel was known but there was little that could be done if you were downstream of other mills taking power from the river.
I look forward to the time when we have the 'too many wind turbines' problem to solve.
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoIs that true, surely there's a terminal velocity that's reached by water flowing down a riverbed after - I'd guess - a hundred metres or so (probably much less)? Given the mill is not reducing the volume of water, surely it gets back to speed in time to hit another mill a couple of miles downstream. Silting, I'd think would be a problem.
- Theodores 8y agoThe mill buildings were really close, a couple of hundred on five small tributaries, each tributary running no more than a few miles before converging to one river that had even more mills on it, larger and not so dependent on river speed. The river had been dredged and otherwise adjusted by people at the time for it to have subsequently been used for the canal of the area. It is therefore hard to imagine how it once was, particularly given that water wheel technology evolved too.