Big pipes for rainy New Mills- (11/04)

'Traffic chaos' in New Mills as the concrete pipes are delivered

One by one - carefully lifted into place

then carefully buried and ready for our next heavy downpour...

The early part of the project involved the relocation of a United Utilities discharge pipe which carries storm water from New Mills into the river and is used as an 'overflow' when we have a deluge in New Mills which thankfully isn't as often as you would imagine.

The original pipe entered the river right across where the Archimedes screw will be relocated so with the kind agreement of United Utilities we were able to relocate the pipe to avoid the location of the screw.

Following relocation the original pipe is now dismantled

In the picture below you can see clear archaeological evidence of the first stage of development of Schofield mill from 1790, whereby the archway in the retaining wall (under the yellow painted mark) shows an intake from the water behind Torrs weir - this is significant because other investigations of the mill have shown the aqueduct in situ , but this does not provide an explanation for Torrs weir - this shows an intake on this 'intermediate' height, and the wall from centre to bottom right is taken to be the original 1790 external wall, with intake arch bottom right. This is only partially intact since it would seem that the rebuilding in 1820, whereby the higher weir was built will have made this inlet redundant. In any case, the arch has been partially removed, and a new (now removed) wall was built into this point.