MMO2274 - Post-medieval leat crossing Stoke Pero Common (Monument)

A spring fed leat or water channel is visible on aerial photographs as an earthwork. It may be a head main, supplying the catch water system at Stoke Pero Farm with water and acting as a simple catch water system when required.

A spring fed water channel is visible on aerial photographs as an earthwork crossing Stoke Pero Common from Lang Combe to Stoke Pero village. It is possibly a type of water channel known as a head main, which might have supplied the catch water system at Stoke Pero Farm, although no direct connection is visible on the aerial photographs available to the survey. Several extensive head mains have been recorded on Exmoor, the longest examples reaching several kilometres in length. This earthwork is just under one kilometre in length, centred on circa SS 8738 4304. It may also have had a dual function, acting as a simple catch water system when required. Usually found on combe sides or hill slopes, catchwater water meadows are designed to irrigate pasture by diverting water from a spring or stream along the slope via one or more channels or gutters. When irrigation was required the channels were blocked, causing water to overflow, thereby irrigating the slopes. This film of water prevented the ground freezing during the winter and raised the temperature of the grass in the spring, thereby encouraging early growth, particularly important during the hungry gap of the March and April. This channel is marked on the 1st Edition Ordnance Survey map of 1889 and is therefore, at the latest, 19th Century in date. [1-5] This record was enhanced as part of the National Record of the Historic Environment to Exmoor National Park Historic Environment Record data transfer project. [6] N.B. This may or may not be the same feature recorded as MSO12207. It has been mapped in a different location. [7] The leat is clearly shown to split at c. SS 8775 4336. One arm drains into the field to the north at SS 8773 4339 (presumably feeding the water meadow MSO7373); the other follows the western side of the road before passing underneath it eastwards at SS 8783 4353. It is possible this part fed the farmbuildings at Church Farm (MSO10570). [8] The Tithe Map for Stoke Pero labels the field at SS87694332 (land parcel 177), through which the feature passes, as "Water Leat". [9]