Saturday 27 July 2013
Monday 15 July 2013
Old Wooden Tree Pump
On Friday night I had a strange phone call quite late.
A man phoned about this blog, he'd found something he called a tree pump on his farm and tried searching for information on the Internet and came across this post.
Only one large lump of wood found this time |
I'd say it was older than the one I saw near Bishops Castle, not so much time had been spent on the outside of this pump or pipe as it was quite rough, just hewed square I'd guess. Also they'd picked a piece of wood that had loads of knots in it which seems an odd choice if your drilling it by hand as it would make it much harder work. That said there might have been a shortage of timber at the time and apparently there used to be monks living there so time might not have been an issue.
From what I can work out I'd say this was the base where the water was drawn from. It's set up from the bottom to prevent too much sediment getting pumped through |
roughly a 5" diameter hole all the way down it |
This would be the top. Tapered to fit tightly into another length of pipe |
A fragment of timber from it that looks like elm |
The pool where it was taken from |
If I ever have enough time I'd love to build a working wooden pump like this and make it the traditional way (although finding the elm might be difficult these days). I think that through building it you would learn how it works to a much greater level and what they must have done all those years ago to have water close at hand.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)