Tavistock Canal - Archaeological Excavations

Canal Incline Winding House - 2004-05

The truncated remains of this were excavated at the invitation of the site owners, in advance of gardening works.

They were shown to preserve features described by the Prussian engineers Carl Von Oeynhausen & Heinrich Von Dechen in 1829, including a pair of turntables and a pit which contained the mechanism operating a tilting plate which automatically declutched the drive from the adjoining water wheel. This reconstruction section prepared in 2006 shows how this may have worked, although aspects of it are now out of date, notably the position of the water wheel behind, which is now known to have been lower.