Print Size 11 x 14 (Frame 16 x 20) Engineer: Robert Casement
Famous for its tail-less cats, the Isle of Mann (Manx) also boasts the Laxey Wheel, the world’s largest working water wheel. In a typically Victorian blend of imagination, innovative technology, can-do optimism and ostentatious spectacle, local engineer Robert Casement designed the wheel to drain water from the mine shafts a quarter-mile below, where workers toiled to meet the Industrial Revolution’s ever-growing demand for lead. Casement collected river water in a cistern on a nearby hilltop and connected it to the wheel by closed pipe, forcing water up through the tower’s center; DeChirico-like stairs cling to its exterior. At top, the water poured into slats on the wheel’s circumference; the wheel rotated and powered the pump that drained the mines. Affectionately named for the wife of the Isle of Man’s 19th-century governor, 7-story “Lady Isabella” appears on the back of 20£ Manx bank notes.
