At its meeting on Tuesday, the Rotary Club of Bourne announced that Bourne Civic Society’s plans to generate electricity at Baldock’s Mill will be its major project for 2008.

Speaking at the club’s meeting society committee member and resident engineer for the Water Wheel Project Jim Jones explained there had been a watermill on the South Street site since before the Domesday Book (1086).

Power generation from water ceased at the current mill, built around 1800, when the main 18 foot diameter breastshot wheel collapsed in 1924.

The society has renovated and restored the former watermill, a Grade II listed building, which is now home to the town’s heritage centre.

Mr Jones said: “By 1978 when the society started looking at the building it was in a fairly desperate state with all sorts of rot and structural problems which needed sorting out after we took over the mill in 1983.”

In 2003 two new decorative waterwheels were installed at the mill.

With the support of the Rotary Club of Bourne and the engineering back-up of Pedley Wheel Trust, it is planned to convert the larger breastshot wheel to generate green electricity.

Mr Jones explained: “A normal English breastshot wheel can be up to 50 per cent efficient, but using French designed curved steel blades (rather than flat boards) an efficiency of 80 per cent can be obtained. If we can harness that power we can produce AC electricity which we could use to run our storage heaters in the winter and sell our surplus power into the National Grid in summer.”

At 12 foot diameter, the biggest of the two wheels is just two-thirds of the original waterwheel’s diameter – a size reduction forced on the society when the floor level above the mill race had to be lowered to provide a flat access to a new fire exit.

However, with the more efficient curved blades, together with the gearing to produce around 1,600 rpm, a four-pole motor to generate electricity and equipment to control the output it should be all systems go for green energy at Baldock’s Mill – Bourne Heritage Centre in 2008.

Rotary Club president Canon David Staples said: “We are delighted to be aiding Bourne Civic Society as our main beneficiary in 2008 with its efforts to generate green electricity at its heritage centre, Baldock’s Mill.”