Möhrendorfer water pumping wheels
The ten Möhrendorfer water pumping wheels on the Regnitz are among the last of their kind in Central Europe and are a unique cultural monument. With wooden buckets attached to the bike, they draw the warmer and oxygen-rich upper water from the river into a system of channels for irrigation of the fields, making the meadows particularly productive.
history
The water pumping wheels in Möhrendorf are documented as early as the 15th century. In 1805 around 190 such waterwheels were still in operation on the Regnitz between Fürth and Forchheim over a length of approx. 25 kilometers, more than any other river in Central Europe . It is believed that the people in Mesopotamia already 250 BC. Known technology was brought to Franconia by crusaders, Jerusalem pilgrims and Nuremberg merchants.
According to the Baiersdorf water regulations from 1693, which are still partially valid today , the bucket wheels may only be operated from May 1st to September 30th. The massive wooden structures, reminiscent of mill wheels, are nowadays set up by volunteers at the beginning of the summer season and dismantled and stored at the end of the season. (See also Regnitz ).
The ten bikes and their godparents
Ten water paddles are currently in operation.
1. Wässerwiesenrad
2. Forty man bike
3. Rinnigrad
4. Forged wheel
5. Weidackerrad
6. Lock wheel
7. Little shepherd's wheel
8. Connoisseur's bike
9. Old shepherd's wheel
10. Pawn wheel
Each water pumping wheel has a sponsor who and his team assemble the wheel in spring, check and maintain it during the season, dismantle it again in autumn and dismantle, dry and store it in winter and, above all, repair or replace damaged wooden parts. The wheels are numbered upstream, so in the direction of the increasing river kilometers . This begins at the confluence of the Regnitz in the Main-Danube Canal . There are seven wheels on the left bank of the river, three on the right bank. Only the forty-man wheel is in operation as a double wheel with fights on both wheel rims.
| No. | Surname | Godparents | Item | km | left / right | Struggles | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wässerwiesenrad | Free voters Möhrendorf | 49.641468 ° N , 11.006517 ° O | 39.65 | Left | 24 | REWE |
| 2 | Forty man bike | Möhrendorf community | 49.637873 ° N , 11.004591 ° O | 40.00 | right | 2 x 18 | Table and bench, stork biotope |
| 3 | Rinnigrad | CSU Möhrendorf | 49.636977 ° N , 11.004333 ° O | 40.05 | Left | 24 | |
| 4th | Forged wheel | Water Management Office Nuremberg | 49.637232 ° N , 11.004921 ° O | 40.10 | right | 24 | Parking lot, blackboard |
| 5 | Weidackerrad | Harald Rudolph, farmer | 49.635375 ° N , 11.006112 ° O | 40.20 | right | 24 | parking spot |
| 6th | Lock wheel | Green Citizens' Forum Möhrendorf | 49.63502 ° N , 11.005875 ° O | 40.21 | Left | 24 | |
| 7th | Little shepherd wheel | Satisfaction Association, Oberndorf | 49.629172 ° N , 11.006984 ° O | 41.20 | Left | 24 | Bench, Oberndorf |
| 8th | Connoisseur's bike | Hans Rudolph, farmer | 49.626344 ° N , 11.006741 ° O | 41.60 | Left | 24 | |
| 9 | Old shepherd's wheel | Boys club Renner | 49.625085 ° N , 11.003373 ° O | 41.88 | Left | 24 | |
| 10 | Farmer's wheel | Erlangen municipal utilities | 49.623755 ° N , 11.000494 ° O | 42.15 | Left | 24 | Nature adventure trail station 10/1 |
construction
A water scoop system consists of the dam system, the wheel station, the scoop wheel and the irrigation system.
Dam
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The dam or "wing" is a small weir built at an angle into the river, which dams the river about 10 cm high. It directs the water to the Radstatt. Below it on the river bed is the "basic tree", a heavy oak beam measuring 50 x 35 cm, with a long weir usually made of several pieces of beams one after the other. Square holes are chiseled out every 75 cm in the base tree. A “needle” about 3 meters long is driven through every second hole into the river bed, anchoring the tree firmly in the river. Laying a basic tree takes almost two weeks, even with modern hydraulic equipment. The basic tree has a lifespan of around 100 years because it is constantly under water.
The actual weir is then built on it in spring. To do this, "docks", square pieces of wood made from oak, are inserted into the holes in the tree that are still free. "Wing boards" are attached between the docks, 3 meters long, 20 cm high and 3 cm, on which the water accumulates. Building the weirs in the flowing river is hard work. In autumn, wing boards and docks are removed again and stored.
Radstatt
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The "Radstatt" or "Radstube" is the base for the bucket wheel and remains anchored in the river bed all year round. It consists of two parts standing in the water. Each part consists of three oak piles that are parallel to the bank or to the direction of flow of the river in the water. The piles used to be driven in with a ram , today they are pushed about 1 meter into the river bed with an excavator. To do this, sometimes a rock fill has to be brought into the river as a working platform and then removed again. The pine “yoke beam” rests on the three piles. This creates a land side and a river side yoke. Both are stably connected to each other by two bars.
As a hydraulic engineering facility , the Radstatt belongs to the area of responsibility of the Water Management Office , which builds , controls and maintains it.
Bucket wheel
The bucket wheel is at the same time the water drive of the system and the conveying device for the irrigation water. In total, a water wheel consists of over 500 parts. They are held together by more than 300 wooden wedges and nails and 76 tension and barrel rings. Except for the shaft journals and clamping rings on the shaft and the barrel rings on the hulls, all parts are made of wood.
The bucket wheel consists of the following parts:
- wave
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- The approximately 35 cm thick shaft is cut round from a thick oak trunk on a band saw. A steel pin about 70 millimeters thick is inserted at both ends. The pin is clamped in place with two steel clamping rings and the shaft is protected against splintering. The steel pins are stored in a bearing block ("shaft") made of oak. This creates a metal-to-wood plain bearing with water lubrication. The shaft has three rectangular openings at each end to accommodate the three arms for the wheel rim.
- poor
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- Three “arms” each form the six spokes for a wheel rim. The arms are made of oak. The middle arm is straight, the two adjacent arms are slightly curved so that they are exactly in line with the circumference of the wheel rim at the outer end. They are inserted through the shaft, aligned with centimeter precision and firmly wedged with oak wedges for the next five months. The arms are about 4 meters long, the spokes are 2 meters and together with the wheel rim form a wheel with a diameter of about 4 meters.
- rim
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- The bucket wheel has two wheel rims. Six "crooks" each are connected to form a wheel rim. To do this, they are individually placed on the six spokes and fixed on the spoke with a "nasal pinch" and a wedge. The crooked pieces are connected to each other with two “Schetterboards” and four “Schetternails” to form a wheel rim. The crooked pieces are made from appropriately crooked pine wood, so that the bent wood fibers can withstand the high loads caused by water power. They are cut into their exact shape with the band saw.
- Shovel boards
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- Each bucket wheel is driven by 24 paddle boards. They are attached on both sides with a "water band" and a "frog wedge". Water tapes are tapes made of oak wood that are boiled in hot water for some time so that they can be bent into the desired shape. They are placed around the shovel board lying vertically on the wheel rim, the ends are inserted through a hole in the wheel rim and wedged from behind with a round wooden pin (frog wedge). For a lack of time, the oak straps are now being replaced by iron straps on some bikes.
- Bucket
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- The bucket or "kampf" transport the irrigation water from the river into the irrigation system. The Kümpfe be in traditional craftsmanship of the cooper made up of the three iron hoops made entirely of wood. The hulls are attached to the wheel rim with two oak kumfnails. So that the Küumpfs can pour the water into the trough when pouring out, they have to be attached at a slight angle pointing away from the wheel rim. This is achieved by attaching the spout of the rear body lying on the lower belly of the front body. The front trumpet nail and the rear trunk supported on the front trunk and the wheel rim thus form a stable triangle. For this purpose, two butt nails are put through a butt and driven into the wheel rim behind and fixed there with oak wedges.
- A simple bucket wheel carries 24 stumps on the land side wheel rim. A double bucket wheel carries 36 or 48 bodies, 18 or 24 on the land side and 18 or 24 on the river side. Each bucket holds a good 30 liters, but only transports about 10 liters to the top. One wheel draws 240 (single wheel), 360 (small double wheel) or 480 liters (double wheel) per revolution.
Irrigation system
Each water paddle used to supply an extensive irrigation network. Sometimes several bucket wheels fed such a network together. The kulls draw the water from the river. At the top of the wheel rotation, about 4 meters above the water level, they pour out the water. A large pouring trough catches it and guides it through a wooden drainage channel into the irrigation ditches. A system consisted of many ditches and canals, between which the water flow could be distributed and diverted with gates or sluices.
A simple water wheel draws around 1,400 cubic meters of water or 1,400,000 liters per day. One wheel supplied up to 8 hectares of meadows. Thanks to this irrigation of the meadows , three mowings (harvests) of hay and grummet could be brought in a year instead of the usual one.
Since the irrigation network usually irrigated meadows from different owners, the irrigation times of the individual properties were meticulously determined.
Möhrendorf water wheel community
The "Wasserradgemeinschaft Möhrendorf eV" was founded in 1995 as a non-profit association. It is the lobby for the water wheels towards authorities and donors, does public relations work and advertises and administers grants and donations for the maintenance of the water wheels. Members are two representatives from each of the ten bikes. An obman and his representative manage the business.
Water wheel as a municipal coat of arms
A stylized water scoop wheel can be found in the municipal coat of arms of Möhrendorf, as well as in the coat of arms of the district of Erlangen-Höchstadt , the Fürth districts of Stadeln and Vach , as well as the municipality of Hausen (near Forchheim) .
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literature
- Ralf Dürschner: The Möhrendorfer water paddle wheels - history, purpose, technology and future. Solare Zukunft Verlag, 2001, ISBN 3-933634-08-3 .
- Ralf Dürschner: 600 years of water pumping wheels - artificial irrigation in the Rednitz-Regnitz basin. Solare Zukunft Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978-3-933634-33-7 .
- Konrad Kupfer : The Franconian water paddle wheels. A contribution to the history of technology, meadow culture and folklore. Palm & Enke, Erlangen 1931, DNB 574518401 .
Web links
- Regnitzraeder.de - official website of the Möhrendorf water wheel community
- Video with the 10 water scoops - recorded by Till Hoenig with a drone
Individual evidence
- ↑ Chronicle of the community Möhrendorf. OCLC 634036795 .
- ↑ Hans Rentsch, a farmer, was the previous owner of the water wheel for many years
- ↑ The long-time previous owner of the forty-man bike was the Kohlmann Stammtisch
- ↑ The community of Möhrendorf was the previous owner of the Schloßangerrad for many years
- ↑ built in 1856 ( Memento of 19 April 2018 Internet Archive ), as after the construction of the " Ludwig channel renounced" the Wegrad and Weidackerrad on water rights for each 12 Kümpfe.
- ↑ Further details in: The chronicle of the community Möhrendorf . 2007.
- ↑ Bucket wheels and meadows. In: Stadt-Land-Fluss, Erlangen and the Regnitz. 2013.
- ↑ Link under the coat of arms in the coat of arms gallery leads to the chapter "Heraldry" of the municipality concerned
Map with all coordinates: