Have you heard of a donkey wheel?

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Now that we’ve settled in to our new house a little, I am continuing to cull my bookshelves. I have about five books about donkeys and plan to sell them as a bulk lot on a Buy and Sell website. I wanted to reread a couple of them first and now of course there is one I probably won’t sell. It’s called ‘Enamoured of an Ass’ and is an anthology. One of the interesting articles in it is an explanation of ‘donkey wheels’. These were treadmills where the power was supplied by a donkey. It seems these were common in parts of England particularly the south-east where the chalky ground meant that, to have a water supply, very deep wells (up to 300ft or more [91.4+ metres]) had to be sunk. It’s a bit complicated to explain how they work but a windlass attached to the wheel pulls buckets up and down. You can see one in action if you click on the link. Dogs and sometimes men also powered these wheels but not usually large animals. The diameter of surviving wheels range from 10 to over 19 ft (3 – 5.7 metres) in diameter. The clip is from Carisbrooke Castle, Isle of Wight. The photo was taken in Luxor at the free animal hospital there. I subscribe to this regularly as the animals in Egypt have a pretty horrendous life.