Shelsley Watermill - VII

There were only two of us working on the mill this morning but the work was significant because we were actually building something up instead of just cleaning and cutting down.

Only a few courses of bricks, the facing for the bearing plinth under the outer end of the wheel, but they were just as tricky to lay as we expected. At one point John had his head through one gap between the spokes and his arms through two different spaces between other spokes just laying one brick. The comment when I admitted I had not got a camera was something like “Oh good” but just a touch more earthy.

On the subject of cameras and photographs, I have put all the watermill pictures that I have on PicasaWeb,the new web based photo album from Google. I think every picture has a caption, but I can’t promise that all the captions make sense.

Hopefully we will be back up to numbers on Thursday because the next job is to mix and pour concrete behind the wall that John built today to complete the base for the bearing. Once that has set we should be able to jack the wheel up into position and maybe, just maybe, get it to turn. Then we will be able to start restoring the buckets on the wheel. That really will be a significant milestone!