Water Wheel Restoration
LET’S BRING IT BACK!
We have all the metal pieces and parts for the water wheel and are ready to start milling the white oak lumber and the assembly of what was once one of the largest water wheels in Maryland!
Checks can be made out to “Preservation Alliance of Baltimore County” with memo “Manor Mill”.
Online donation form will be active soon!
Preservation Alliance of Baltimore County (PABC) is a county-wide 501(c)3 organization dedicated to preserving Baltimore County’s diverse & unique heritage of buildings, sites, landscapes, viewsheds, & neighborhoods.
Follow the water wheel journey
March, 2024
We were pretty pumped to take a field trip to Camp Small, to kick off the next phase of the water wheel! As we search for places to source the thousands of linear board feet we’ll need of white oak to build the enormous 24’ overshot wheel, its amazing to think that many of the trees will be sourced right from Baltimore City.
Pictured above is Robert Jones, the timber frame icon of Northern Baltimore County, reviewing his hand-drawn rendering of the wheel and its dimensions with the two managers of Camp Small and admiring the big stack of white oak logs.
Run by Baltimore City Department of Recreation and Parks, Camp Small is a “wood waste collection yard” covering 5 acres in the Jones Falls Valley just north Cold Spring Lane. Started in early 2016, Camp Small is a collaboration with the Baltimore Office of Sustainability, which created the Camp Small Zero Waste initiative in an effort to sort and distribute the variety of wood products at the site.
APRIL, 2024
This 5', 6/4 14" piece of flat-sawn white oak came from one of the many white oaks that thrived in Baltimore City. The extremely knowledgeable folks at Camp Small shared that it was likely that this particular plank came from Druid Hill Park, and based on the diameter and ring size, it grew slowly and was likely over 200 years old when it came down. Climate change, soil degradation and the like have led to many white oaks dying or needing to come down faster than we'd like in and around Baltimore.
So much of Maryland's success came from the white oak -- an entire shipping industry, for instance, relied on the white oak because of its strength, density and closed cell structure that makes it rot resistant. Today, Camp Small harvests those fallen trees and then repurposes the wood for everything from park benches to furniture to playgrounds ... and a water wheel!
In partnership with Baltimore County Historic Trust, we are just kicking off what will be a year-long effort to gather the wood and raise the funds to build the water wheel in 2025. Step 1: make a paddle!