THE water wheel at the old Mill House in Okehampton is back up and running after recently being refurbished.

The wheel, which had new launder and water buckets installed, has been renewed to all the timber components of how the 19th century water wheel used to be in its prime.

The owner of the wheel, Beryl Holley, expressed thanks to carpenter Andy Tolley and his team — Joe Ward, Shane Hughes , Sarah Tolley and Anthony Davies.

'It cost a lot of money to rebuild the wheel in 1990, but it needs renewal of the buckets every 20 years or so.

'Andy has done a fantastic job and we are very pleased with the results.

'We are very grateful to West Devon Borough Council who have promised a 15% grant to help with the renewal.

'We hope it will run all summer and autumn without major stoppages, so that visitors on the Tarka Trail and residents can enjoy the image of powerful machinery from the past.

'It's great because we have already had people stop and tell us how wonderful it is to have the wheel up and running and we hope to use the wheel to generate electricity in the near future.'