MSO7684 - Post-medieval fish weirs at Culver Cliff Sand (Monument)

Three stone intertidal fish weirs lie on Culver Cliff Sand at SS 9610 4802, SS 9617 4795 and SS 9624 4790. The largest, centred at SS 9610 4802 has arms 100 metres long, 0.8 metres wide and 0.5 metres high, surviving as 1-2 courses of beach cobbles. The south end is fragmentary. A sluice is visible but was not surveyable at the time of survey. To the east and inland are two further weirs. They are centred at SS 9617 4795 and 9624 4790. The western weir has arms 50 metres long, 1.6 metres wide and 0.7 metres high. Some of the core structure is visible in the better preserved eastern arm; the southern end of the western arm is very fragmentary. Part of the sluice is visible as a channel 1.2x0.6 metres, with the seaward end blocked by tumble. The easternmost weir has arms 50 metres long, 5 metres wide and 0.5 metres high. The walls are low and spread. The sluice has been infilled with tumble; a recent breach lies to the southwest of it. The weirs were surveyed using GPS as part of the RCHME Exmoor project. [1] The largest fish weir is depicted on the 1st edition 25 inch Ordnance Survey map. [2] Weir 1: the structure is constructed of two curvilinear walls of heaped stones between 2.7 and 4.8 metres wide, the western wall being 46 metres long, although fragmentary in places and the eastern wall 62 metres long. Weir 2: the structure is constructed of two curvilinear walls of heaped stones between 6 and 5.8 metres wide, the western wall being 68 metres long, although fragmentary at the end and the eastern wall 53 metres long. Weir 3: the structure is constructed of two linear walls of heaped stones about 4 to 4.5 metres wide, the western wall being 86 metres long and the eastern 98 metres long, although this is fragmentary. The two walls of the weirs form a V-shaped structure with the apex facing north seaward, creating a tidal pool formed by the walls to the rear, trapping fish on the outgoing tide. A narrow opening (about 3.8 metres long by 1.2 metres wide in the case of weir 2) at the weir's apex, known as a sluice, funnels the fish into nets set across it as the pool empties. The structures were still visible in 1999. [3-4]