MMO1566 - Post-medieval water meadow north of Yenworthy Farm (Monument)

A post-medieval catchwater meadow system is visible as an earthwork on aerial photographs. It may not have been directly connected to a farm but may have been associated with a linhay that place name evidence suggests was in the area.

A post- medieval water meadow, known locally as a catchwater meadow system, is visible as an earthwork on aerial photographs to the north of Yenworthy Farm. The system extends over an area measuring approximately 79 hectares and is centred at approximately SS 8037 4893. Four gutters stretch across two fields on a northeast facing slope above Yenworthy Combe. On the opposite slope and covering two fields (i.e. those facing southwest) a further twelve gutters are visible. Although close to Yenworthy Farm, the system does not appear to be directly connected to the farmyard; however, place names suggest there may have been a cattle shed nearby (Linhay), therefore it is likely to be an integrated system which also distributed liquid manure across the fields.The gutters are fed by a stream that runs down from a building marked "Rodhill Linhay" on the Ordnance Survey 1:10560 scale map of 1963. [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] The eastern portion of the catchwork meadow appears to be fed by a water course that passes around Yenworthy Farm and was controlled by a pond and sluice - see MSO11496 for further details. [6]