Ifield Water Mill Restoration

I filled multi-mineral dates back to around 1590 and is a favorite location for school trips I field itself is mentioned in the Domesday book the village and mill are situated to the west of crawling the mill wheel and launder the structure that delivers the water to the top of the wheel was restored and rebuilt back in 1974 but has since become unsafe and has fallen into a poor state of repair the wheel has not been serviceable or used for some two years the water mill has what is known as a nervous shock wheel this means that the water is supplied to the top of the wheel making it more powerful at the weight of the water combined with gravity make it more efficient the mill sits on the bank or dam to the north of the hammer pond the internal workings of the mill are in good condition but the external workings were in need of attention thanks to the efforts of local enthusiasts funds were acquired to enable a restoration project to be initiated local craftsmen and millwrights jhg limited of Burgess Hill were appointed and began work in the August of 2007 more than power to help to make light work of the heavy duty job but so much of the work is good old-fashioned manual labor purpose of the project really is to replace these wooden fellows with cast iron we're pretty convinced that originally that would have been cast iron rims and these wooden ones were only done in a restoration of some time and of course it's was much cheaper to use timber but it's not proved to be very long-lasting so we are now going to replace all the phonies in cast iron the first job of course is to strip strip all the old paddles buckets out we hope we are reusing the buckets and hopefully the castings that secure the back now that you were involved in an area restaurant yes 1974 we started doing the whole restoration of the entire building and then we went from there to rebuilding the wheel itself which took us 12 volunteers at that time and we took us nearly three years to completely rebuild it oh yeah indeed they say 25 years or so is a good spend a time for a wooden wheel this is composite of course but yeah so what we're putting in now being can't stone and whatever to replace its in then it should last probably another hundred years or more before and there's any major attention so it's a long-term solution rather than again the short term if we didn't use the cast iron on the new build we would be looking for another rebuild in say 25 30 years time which I shall be about no doubt but somebody else left yes yes as you can see we're managing with our electric saws quite well having the bolts through making good progress got a few more to do yet we'll press on 30 years apparently yes so it's done fairly well but as you can see it's eroded now and got quite dropping in places as material is removed from the wheel it becomes out of balance and a chain hoist is employed to control the unwanted rotation it is important to bracket holding the bucket in faiths are not damaged during removing and these will be refurbished to be reused yeah going fairly well we've about one-third left to do now getting more and more difficult to turn the wheel of course because we're in our balance but we've got the chain block on it now which we managed to turn with the struggle on is it going as expected the easier or worse Oh better than expected yes we're allowed you know several more days for stripping it I think we'd only need one more day next week to finally strip the the wheel down around 1200 volts hold the bucket line engine plane all have to be removed a knighted Rogers VI feel cool better position now for another three floats to come off the repairs to the structure roof re cladding and new windows was completed and eventually the flooring and new staircases were in school together with a rebuild of the waterwheel and launder the wheel had been originally designed with a cast iron axle and spokes but with timber rim sections and cross boarding this was replicated in the rebuild of 74 finally the last bucket is removed 96 nuts-and-bolts hold the wheel rims together under the spokes some of these were specially manufactured by a local company back in the seventies well these have been in here 30 years and fairly exposed to the weather so the threads have corroded which means that when I'm trying to get it out and the nut tightens right up on the thread the only way to release that apartment demolish the vehicles is to basically clear the streets debris rust then it should in fact come right out we're not going to take it away and completely well this whole bearing for the wheel which is solid bronze sits on a shoe which can slide up and down on this base plate and the idea is as you adjust the screws you can move the whole shoe and therefore the bearing sideways and making sure the alignment of the wheel with the gears inside etc don't don't believe this it's actually turning the only thing that holds it in that course is the recess in the back of it do you say that coca-cola works just as well that's good it's quite a good thread actually in their basic thread surpri it was wasn't it's not stainless steel I think we can count on success one bolt one nut I don't know whether that's are not wrong they're not doing this and we use a space this is a strong electromagnet holds it down on the work and it's very convenient we're very pleased with the castings they're excellent quality drilled nicely because of the the draw that the count and casting the foundry had to put on each segment we've had to grind grind it square this face is now square to the run of the rim and then we've drilled it scraped it all off all the Rustom back off with thee with a very sharp sort of foil tour chisel and and then we wire brush them and then cut them up with the pitch a mystic paint that's why you should get it y'all found this was the best way to get it right back to the red LED base that was on them so they'll come up quite well then wire brush these you know the mechanical wire brush feeding them up and then we've repainted them they've come out quite well special paint no I saw like a picture Musti pite that goes on sort of really sort of sees everything that time that was what was on before you CES its compatible with what was one before yes it was pretty awful the dust that we got from either wire brushing the things made John ill at one time and to take the die off tonight you better make sure they as the final rim section is positioned the structure is now beginning to look like a mill wheel again the next stage is to fit the 128 racquets to hold the bucket the quarter of these will have to be fitted to the blanking plates just before assembly to enable access to the nuts and bolts the arduous task of refitting all the buckets can now begin this family obviously I'm surprised most an outfit I know you are these last few have gone so smoothly it begs the question why did the other 60 take so long so what I've been looking for something of a wildfire on me yep yeah to ensure an even flow of water over the wheel final adjustments are made to get the base level yeah that that is pretty good let's wait to him about the same either side now that is both on yeah that one across yeah yeah finally the work is complete and no doubt the wildlife will appreciate the return of peace and quiet all that remains now is for the watermill to be officially reopened access it gives me great pleasure to declare I filled mill open you

Channel: TIMELINE ENTERTAINMENT

Views: 23,607

Rating: 4.9097743 out of 5

Keywords: Watermill, Timeline, Entertainment, Crawley, History, West Sussex, Gavin Beesley, Casablanca, XL2, IAC, Restoration, Ifield, Culture, Canon, Ifield Water Mill, Ted Henbery, Documentary, Museum, Project, Heritage, Crawley Museum, Ifield Mill, Timeline Entertainment

Id: 3ogg1FhO9W0

Length: 27min 43sec (1663 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 10 2014