Progress Wey & Arun Canal Down on the Wey & Arun they’re literally ‘reinventing the wheel’ - rebuilding and improving the unique waterwheel that supplies the canal at Lordings with associated end flanges had to be commissioned, manufactured to exact size and You may not know it, but there is a fixed in place by a specialist engineering waterwheel on the Wey & Arun Canal - and a contractor. All the peripheral steelwork had unique one at that. to be removed, then brushed up and rejuveAt the southern end of the canal, on nated with a special underwater paint. The the section which was built as part of the Arun Navigation, you’ll find Lordings Lock and Orfold Aqueduct (which form a single combined structure), along with a waterwheel. Here the canal is carried over the River Arun by the three-arched aqueduct, while the waterwheel - powered by the river lifts the water into the canal. It is thought to be the The late Winston Harwood working on the original 1990s restoration only one of its kind on the national waterways system. Sadly, recent vandalism and deterioration have rendered the waterwheel unusable but thanks to a grant from a charitable trust, Wey & Arun Canal Trust volunteers have begun to restore this heritage asset. The project, led by former mechanical engineer Brian King, has called for painstaking precision; a bespoke single The restored water wheel in earlier times stainless steel shaft Pictures by WACT
The Wey & Arun Canal waterwheel
page 26
