Dear List,
I was recently informed that a pair of water wheel patterns had come on the market through a dealer in West Devon. They were described in a rather garbled fashion by an auction house in Truro, Cornwall, where the vendor had purchased them earlier this year.
I went to view them and found a matched pair of rim patterns, in grey painted pine, 8 feet long with faded copperplate handwriting in white chalk: "Wheal Friendship, 45' 0" Dia". I was able to purchase them for a very reasonable price and they will go on display at Morwellham Quay Museum in due course.
The only information in the auctioneers' docket which may be of use was the information that the patterns had belonged to Pearce of Tavistock, an ironfounder whose works, the Tavy Iron Works, was in business from 1850 to about 1893 before selling out to another company. I know a reasonable amount about the Tavistock foundries, but little about Wheal Friendship (not a lot has been published). Bradford Barton states that the mine had a 45' wheel installed in the late 1840s, but this would be a little early for Pearces.
Can anyone shed any further light on this matter? It would be of considerable interest if anyone happens to know what became of the hub pattern for example, or whether other patterns had survived.
Robert Waterhouse
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