European forges and water power

[Iain]

Hopefully this topic is fine for this part of the forum. I'm fascinated by water powered tools within European forges, which started from a pretty early period as I understand it and were heavily used by the 14th century.

While a main application was for crushing ore with trip or drop hammers, forges also used them and water powered grinding wheels.

I find watching videos of these tools fascinating and though forum members might enjoy a few.

Brescia, Italy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96ED...I&noredirect=1

Belluno, Italy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp_A0HSEjbI

Arbesbach, Austria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M24nZbhKkdU

I am certainly no expert in this topic but Agricola's De re Metallica is a great resource into these processes.

Perhaps others will know of more sites with surviving water powered forge tools? I am not sure how far back the examples I posted go, but I think show the general principle quite nicely.