> Dale Warehouse Underground Waterwheel 📍

In 1983 an 1824 15 foot 10 inch waterwheel was discovered in an underground chamber beneath Dale Warehouse (now Carver’s Warehouse). Used until the late 1880s it powered hoists to lift goods from the Rochdale Canal into nearby warehouses, and a 70 foot tunnel housed a shaft which transferred the power to the now demolished 1922 warehouse directly to the south.

I’ve taken the exact location from a diagram in this archaeological study of a nearby Tariff Street site.

Canal warehouse, including subterranean water-wheel; now store and display rooms. 1806, by William Crossley (dated on keystone of window in north gable), with waterwheel of 1824; altered.
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subterranean wheel-pit parallel to south wall containing 16-foot breast-shot water-wheel (by T.C.Hewes) with hub-mounted gearing and remains of wooden spokes and wrought-iron and wooden buckets, formerly used to drive hoists both in this building and in a former warehouse to the south (via line-shaft through tunnel which mostly survives beneath car-park)

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