2006 Awards

The Laxey Wheel and its setting are exhilarating and the visitor, on first seeing the huge waterwheel with the steep valley rising behind it, must be delighted at the opportunity to explore and understand the site. The wheel was designed in the 19th century to pump flood water out of the underground zinc and iron mines further up valley with its industrial remains of mine shafts, water cisterns, pump houses etc.

A route of panels takes one up the wheel, from which the views of the whole site are thrilling, and then up the valley alongside a viaduct (or ‘rod-duct’ as it turned out to be) to the mine workings. Well-positioned panels explained the functions of the various remains and the social history of the communities who worked there. Some of the panels displayed huge photographs (at least 10 feet tall by 15 feet wide) showing, for example, communities of miners who had gone on to find work in the diamond mines of South Africa. In most environments such large panels would have been intrusive, but here, because of the backcloth of a steep ‘hanger’ of woods behind, they were daring, acceptable and impressive.

The standard of the panels was good, but the judges were left with one nagging doubt, and that was whether the functioning of the wheel was ever clearly explained – in one place – to the average visitor. Basically the wheel moves a huge wooden rod backwards and forwards by a timber shaft along the ‘rod-duct’ to activate the pump higher up the valley. No single clearly illustrated panel seemed to explain this at the start of the route, and although one was able to speculate enjoyably and probably work out the answer during the course of the route, the lack of an early succinct explanation might have been frustrating to some. Other visitors made similar comments to the judges.

With that one crucial caveat, the judges were hugely impressed and regard the entry well worthy of a Commendation and only just short of an Award.