Wagbeach Adit Portal, 630m and 640m South of Hogstow Mill
County Council (Unitary)
Shrewsbury and Atcham
SJ364364 (336431, 302536)
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The standing and buried remains of the Wagbeach drainage adit and associated remains including a wheelpit, iron water tank and water channels. The adit, or covered drainage channel, was constructed in the 1790s to serve the nearby lead mine at Snailbeach (SJ 30 SE 14). Its course towards Snailbeach can be traced by the mounds of spoil created when ventilation shafts were cut during its construction. The adit housed a flatrod system, an arrangement of staggered rods which allowed the transmission of power, in this case provided by a waterwheel at the adit entrance, to drive a drainage mechansim in the mine itself, from which water then flowed down through the adit and into Minsterley Brook. The flatrod drainage system was replaced in 1858 by a steam engine located at the mine, and the Wagbeach water system was adapted to drive a barytes grinding mill which processed minerals mined at Snailbeach until its closure in 1926. The entrance or portal of the adit is visible as a brick and stone arch around 1 metre wide and 1.5 metres high. Water still drains from it through a stone-lined channel into the brook. The eastern part of the monument includes features associated with the waterwheel. Remains in this area include a stone wall which survives to a height of 3 metres and carries a leat from which a penstock, in this case an iron water tank with sluice levers, is filled, by means of a thick connecting pipe. The penstock, a rectangular tank, acted as a small reservoir, allowing water to be released at will to assist the turning of the waterwheel to its north, or to feed other industrial processes within the mill. The water from the leat which is not caught in the penstock runs on into a curving channel which carries it north and north west to discharge into the stream. Scheduled.