Styal's Wonder Wheel

This autumn the great iron wheel began to revolve. Reverberating through the building like distant thunder the largest working mill wheel in the country was turning again at Styal, ten miles south of Manchester.

Reconstruction of the giant water wheel at Quarry Bank enables us to see how this late Georgian factory was powered at the height of its Victorian prosperity. Bringing the wheel back into operation has cost £200,000 (of which £75,000 has still to be found) and is a triumph of industrial archaeology.

The original wheel, installed at Styal is 1820, broke down in 1904 and disintegrated. Replacing it has been a massive undertaking during the last six years. Now once again the largest and almost certainly the most powerful water wheel operating in Britain is turning at a stately four revolutions a minute. Twenty-four feet in diameter, twenty-two feet wide and weighing forty-four tons, it is able to generate the 100 horsepower needed to drive the cotton spinning machinery and looms for weaving cloth. Even to a person without mechanical knowledge it is a tremendously impressive sight.