Detailed view from W of water-wheel pit, which now contains a water wheel acquired from Hole Mill Farm in Fife, from where it was removed and widened in the 1990s

Description Detailed view from W of water-wheel pit, which now contains a water wheel acquired from Hole Mill Farm in Fife, from where it was removed and widened in the 1990s

Date 12/6/2002

Collection Records of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), Edinbu

Catalogue Number E 32416 CN

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 754873

Scope and Content Waterwheel pit, Mill No 4, New Lanark, South Lanarkshire, from west This shows the waterwheel pit of Mill No 4, which was built between 1791 and 1793 and was burnt down in 1883. The waterwheel is not original, having been salvaged in 1990 from Hole Mill Farm, Fife. The 7.3m-diameter and 3.6m-wide wheel has 60 wrought-iron buckets and could generate approximately 70 horsepower. The New Institution for the Formation of Character is in the background. Mill No 4 was originally a home for 275 orphaned children with a storeroom and workshop. By 1813 all these activities had been moved to purpose-built buildings and the structure was converted into a mule-spinning mill. Mule-spinning machines combined the moving carriage of a 'spinning jenny' and the drafting rollers of Arkwright's water frame, and could spin yarn into different sizes. New Lanark was founded c.1785 by David Dale (1739-1806), a Glasgow merchant, and Richard Arkwright (1732-92), inventor of a water-frame for cotton spinning. Powered by water flowing from the Falls of Clyde the first cotton mill opened in 1786 and by 1799 the complex was the largest of its kind in Scotland. Robert Owen (1771-1858), who was married to David Dale's daughter, was one of a group who bought the mills in 1800. He transformed them into a model industrial community with good working conditions, houses, a non-profit store, a school and an institute for workers. Owen's partners bought the mills in 1828 and operated them until 1881 when another partnership took over. The Gourock Ropework Company ran the site until 1968 which is now mainly under the care of the New Lanark Conservation Trust (founded 1974-5). New Lanark was designated a World Heritage Site in 2001. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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