All hands to the pumps

If you have a well in your garden or in the street in your village, you need a way of getting the water from the bottom of a deep hole (our well is about 18metres deep) to the surface.

As shown in a previous post, the "ye olde" (is there a French equivalent of that I wonder?) way is the method favoured in fairytales and nursery rhymes: a bucket on a rope, wound around a spindle.

Anyone who grew up before town water came to town, and anyone who has visited the countryside will have seen force pumps. They are the pumps with a long arm you pump up and down, eventually getting water. They use a series of valves creating a vacuum to lift the water and were supposedly invented by Ctesibus of Alexandria, in Egypt. The Roman writer Vitruvius mentioned this device in the first century B.C. and examples have been found in Roman cities, notably Silchester near Reading in England.

A force pump near the Seminary in Bayeux,
now home to the famous 'tapestry'In the garden of the château at La Celle Guenand.
presumably for night watering.

Outside the same château, this more municipal example

The other kind of pump is the centrifugal pump, which uses a spinning impellor to create suction and lift the water. This is usually done with a motor or engine and is the most common type of powered pump, but there are human powered versions as well. The original was invented by Frenchman Denis Papin in the late 17th century.

At the visitor centre for the Roman ruins in Sanxay

Another fine example in St Pierre de Maille

My Personal favorite? A toss up between the "Dragor" dragon, and the impressive if possibly impractical light/pump, I think.

Simon