Gardenvisit.com The Garden Guide

Book: Fragments on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, 1816
Chapter: Fragment Xxxiv. Extracted From The Report Of Endsleigh, A Cottage On The Banks Of The Tamar, In Devonshire, By Permission Of His Grace The Duke Of Bedford. Situation And Character.

Water wheel at Endsleigh

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A stream from the river may be brought, sufficient to turn the under-shot wheel of a corn-mill, or it may be worked by an over-shot wheel: to supply which, a channel, or feeder, may be brought through the wood, from so high a level up the river as to produce the sort of water-fall which I have hinted in the sketch [fig. 249], where such a stream is supposed to pass over the face of certain rocks now hid by brushwood. It is hardly necessary to remark, how much the view from the house would be enlivened by the smoke of a cottage on the opposite side of the water; and, if this cottage were to be a mill, the occasional traffic, and busy motion of persons crossing the Tamar, would add to the picturesque effect of a landscape, which, at present, wants a little more animation. Perhaps it might be possible to give much additional interest to the Tamar, at Endsleigh, if this weir could be converted into a salmon-leap, of any height, that would not require much embankment to preserve the meadow from being overflowed by common floods.