What is it?

Sadly I did not feel at all happy today. I couldn't face the staff barbecue after work either which yesterday I was going to go to.

I did go for a walk and I returned to a path where I had been to before. I'm not very good in eerie dark places with water - don't know why, but it probably goes back into childhood. This is in spite of the fact that among my many interests, water power is among them.

So what do we have here? This is in an area of rough woodland and brush near Westbrook Hall, in the parish of Warnham. Old maps show a fish pond with a boathouse and a sluice. The dam or bay of the pond is quite wide and fairly high. The stream flows into the North River, a rather American name for one of the branches of the River Arun that rises under Leith Hill in Surrey.

The pond is completely dry and overgrown. A high metal footbridge goes over the stream which has a wide outlet. In parallel to this is a channel of brick which has heavy wooden rotting boards over the tail of the channel. This wheel is probably the control wheel of the sluice. However, it's a big heavy wheel with what looks like to me a worm gear. The wheels looks a bit like a ship's wheel. It looks a bit heavy for a sluice as the channel is quite narrow.

I am wondering whether water from the pond was used to drive a pump to take water to the house powered by either a turbine or a waterwhhel under the boards.

Research so far has drawn a blank other than there being a pond here. An interesting site.