MMO1645 - Post-medieval water meadow southwest of Manor Wood (Monument)

A post-medieval catchwater meadow is visible as an earthwork on aerial photographs. There is no evidence that this system was connected to a local farmyard, indicating that this was probably a detached system.

A post-medieval water meadow system, known locally as a catchwater meadow, is visible as an earthwork on aerial photographs to the southwest of Manor Wood. Three ditches, known as gutters are visible, centred at SS 8000 4917 on a steep northfacing slope. They vary in length from between 130 metres to 40 metres, and may have been fed from a spring marked on the Ordnance Survey 1:10560 map [2] approximately 150 metres to the southeast. This series of parallel gutters were used to distribute flowing water evenly over the surface of the meadow in order to encourage early growth in spring and prevent freezing in winter. There is no evidence that this system was connected to a local farmyard, indicating that this was probably a detached system, with no access to liquid manure or other fertiliser except what was carried out to it. In 1947 the area is beginning to revert to scrub vegetation, suggesting that the construction of this meadow may have been part of a failed 19th Century land improvement project. [1-4] This record was enhanced as part of the National Record of the Historic Environment to Exmoor National Park Historic Environment Record data transfer project. [5]