29 October, 2004
Watermills of Dominica
One area of our heritage and culture that is furthest from our minds during our national festivities is that of technology. Fast disappearing are the people who can still make pedal-powered cassava graters, coffee pulping mills or sugar cane presses. Gone are the wheelwrights who made the wooden frames for cart wheels or the men who made the merry-go-rounds, those “patakwa,” that entertained children at village feasts at least up to the 1970s; the last one I saw in operation was at Toucari in 1979.

But the technology, for which Dominica was once really famous, was its big water-powered mills that were used for crushing sugar cane and later limes. When we listen and read all of the current hype about “appropriate technology” and “alternative energy” and the need to save on imported fuel costs, it would be instructive to recall that once the major industries of Dominica were processed with power from our eighty main rivers: the free power running down our valleys morning, noon and night.

SIXTY MILLS

In its heyday, there were some sixty water mills operating all over Dominica and their ruins lie across the island. Only one estate still operates a water mill and that is Macoucherie on the west coast, where the large round 24-foot diameter wheel has been replaced by a small powerful modern Pelton wheel. But the system is the same. A stone canal still channels the water from the river to the mill. The cane is still crushed by water-powered rollers as has been done continuously for over 200 years.

Some of the best watermill examples, where the technology can still be seen in a manner that you can understand how it worked, are the ruins of mills at the estates of Hillsborough, Canefield, River Estate, Hampstead, Blenheim, Rosalie, Londonderry, Castle Comfort, Geneva, Bagatelle and Snug Corner. I have so far recorded a total of sixty watermill sites in various stages of decay.

One of the great things about watermills is that the water can be used again and again by other mills further down the river without reducing the volume of water. For example there were the mills on the Roseau River and its tributaries. The water from this catchment supported four mills down the valley: Wotton Waven, Copt Hall, Bath and Goodwill. Similarly on the Layou River there was Gingerette, York Valley, Clarke Hall and Hillsborough and on the Antrim River there were the mills at Springfield, Antrim Valley and Check Hall. Some of the earliest laws enacted by the first Dominica House of Assembly were to do with water rights for canals on the rivers.

WATER POWER

The wheels on the bigger estates were as large as 24 feet in diameter and two feet wide. The wheels stood upright in a large stone trough secured with a brass or a hard wood axle with a casing that was well anchored into the wall. Around the edge of the wheel were a series of metal or wooden paddles or square buckets to hold the water as it shot out of the canal. The weight and force of the water in the buckets turned the wheel so that the buckets were continuously being filled and emptied. This made one side of the wheel heavy while the empty side was light. This imbalance caused the wheel to turn.

So the physics of gravity, water force and weight produced energy. Cast iron cogs were connected to the central axle and all manner of other wheels could be turned by using gears and belts. The main focus of this operation was of course the cogs attached to the rollers that crushed the estate produce. The mill was turned on and off by lifting or dropping a piece of wood in a sluice that directed or diverted the water in the canal as desired. This describes just the basics of watermill technology and essentially it is quite a simple operation. The DOMLEC hydro-electric power stations at Laudat, Trafalgar and Padu are more complex forms of watermills, but the principle of the re-use of water as explained above is the same.

There are still uses to which old waterwheel sites could be put. Two wheels, one at Rosalie and the other at Canefield, once powered private electricity supplies. Fibreglass wheels are now being produced in Britain which could be used here. And it would be quite a tourist attraction as well as an educational experience for local schoolchildren to see a waterwheel in action again. Like so many things in Dominica, the opportunities are there sitting in front of us, we just have to get up and get our act together.

 

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