Bronze Age Gold from Wales

48 bucket waterwheel made by the Eagle Foundry Co., Aberystwyth (each segment of the shroud of the wheel bears a cast inscription), and installed at a farm in Dolaucothi around 1907. It provided the power to drive a small sawbench and grindstone.

The waterwheel is typical of the many hundred that were used in Wales to drive mill-stones, saw-benches, woollen mills, or almost any small machine.

In this example, an overshot waterwheel, the water enters the buckets at the top of the wheel. This method was used widely in the hilly parts of Wales where there was no difficulty in getting a sufficient head of water to drive the wheel. In other parts of Britain, where the terrain is flat, fast-flowing streams were made to strike the buckets at the bottom of the wheel. This type was called an 'under-shot wheel'.

This wheel was made at the Eagle Foundry in Aberystwyth and installed at a farm on the Dolaucothi Estate in Dyfed about 1907, where it was used to drive a saw-bench and grindstone.

Source: Welsh Industrial & Maritime Museum Guidebook, 1984