Laxey Wheel

The Isle of Man is rich in minerals used in industrial processes, and Glen Mooar Valley is particularly rich in zinc, copper, and galena-lead ore. The first records of lead ore being mined in the valley date from the 1780s. 

The complex project of building the Laxey Wheel was conceived by Robert Casement. A self-taught engineer, Casement proposed building a massive waterwheel—twice the size of the existing wheel—to drive the pumps that would empty the mine of flood water. 

Casement’s solution was practical. Although coal-fired steam engines were driving industry all over England, the Isle of Man had no coal. A water-driven wheel didn’t need any. Casement designed the wheel, the water delivery system, and the pumping machinery.

Shortly before noon, more than 500 mine workers, dressed in holiday attire and accompanied by musicians, walked up through the village to the wheel led by the mine company’s chairman, George W Dumbell, to join their waiting guests.

Laxey village lies just below the wheel’s site. For decades, for people of the town and the surrounding district, the wheel was an important symbol of their way of life and their livelihoods.

Each of the Laxey Wheel’s 168 buckets can hold 24 gallons of water. The weight of the water drives the wheel forward and down. The estimated energy produced by the wheel’s motion is 185–200 horsepower.

The 200-yard-long rod duct, built on the model of a Roman aqueduct, supported the oscillating rod that linked the wheel to the T-rocker at the head of the pumps.

The rod lay on rollers, which minimized friction as it was drawn back and forth in an oscillating motion by the crankshaft. The footpath running along the bottom of the rod duct on the western side is finished with pebbles collected from Laxey Beach. 

A short hike up the valley from the wheel is the engine shaft. This shaft was 247 fathoms (about 452 metres or 1,483 feet) deep and housed 5 pumps at 50 fathom intervals.

The lowest pump forced water up to the next highest pump and so on until, eventually; the topmost pump discharged the water into the Laxey River. The water raised from the mine carried a high concentration of toxic metals, including lead, and the river became badly polluted.

During the 19th century, the Glen Mooar Valley was a hive of industry, and waterwheels weren’t uncommon in the area. They tell us a lot about 19th century attitudes to the environment.

To the Victorians, nature was to be conquered, and this was an age of heroic civil engineering projects. 

A few examples: the London sewer system, with over 1,000 miles of subterranean conduits; the tunnels, bridges, and viaducts of the Great Western Railway; and the Caledonian and Manchester Ship Canals.

Some mine workers were employed in the ‘fixing of timber’. Laxey mine shafts were considered reasonably sound and safe, but some use of wooden ‘pit props’ was necessary.

Mined ore was transported in iron box wagons drawn on rails by horses. A single horse could pull 2 wagons, each weighing about 2½ tonnes (2,500 Kilograms) when fully loaded.