Installation of a water wheel on the Buddle House
Challenge
When the Buddle House was operational, there would have been a water wheel to power the buddles. This wheel was missing from the site when restoration work began. A replacement wheel was obtained, restored and erected on the Buddle House by the Friends in memory of Eric Ryan, the Durham County Council man who drove the development at Killhope from a derelict mine site to a nationally acclaimed museum. The wheel was manufactured in Wales by Bridgend Foundry, Cardigan, but rescued from a site in Devon.
Value
For more than 25 years the wheel has rotated at the end of the Buddle House for the benefit of visitors.