The Groudle Glen water wheel is turning again after an ambitious restoration project.

But the story of its restoration has prompted local historian Peter Kelly to call out the creation of ’fake folklore’.

It turns out we’ve been wrong all along referring to the landmark as the ’Little Isabella’.

Far from being lost in the mists of time, the unlikely provenance of that name dates back just 35 years - to an episode of the TV comedy drama Lovejoy.

In the 1985 episode entitled ’Friends, Romans and Enemies’, roguish antiques dealer Lovejoy, played by Ian McShane, follows clues left in the estate of an eccentric engineer to track down a cache of Roman coins buried in the Isle of Man.

He finds them hidden under the water wheel near a plaque bearing the inscription ’Little Isabella. Built by LR Bexon. Civil Engineer 1926’.

Mr Kelly said: ’This was pure fiction and the name Little Isabella had never been used before nor since. However, I see it has made its way to Wikipedia quite erroneously.

’It is important that fake folklore is not created over the name of the wheel.’

On behalf of the Isle of Man Victorian Society, the local historian wrote to Laxey mining engineers MMD who were behind the restoration project, to make sure they got the name right.

Lieutenant Governor Sir Richard Gozney unveiled a plaque to mark official launch of the restored water wheel and wheelhouse in a ceremony last Friday.

MMD consulted with the Isle of Man Victorian Society throughout the rebuild and as a result the new wheelhouse is a replica of the original 1895 building and not the post-war version that was demolished earlier this year.

Mr Kelly said: ’Locals certainly don’t call it ’Little Isabella’ and Richard Maltby Broadbent who developed Groudle Glen didn’t in his advertising of the glen and its facilities, nor did subsequent owners.’

He pointed out that ever since Kentraugh House appeared in the 2003 TV drama Island At War’ it has not become known as ’Gestapo Headquarters’!