MMO2899 - Post-medieval water meadow east of Cornham Farm (Monument)

A post-medieval water meadow system, known locally as a catchwater meadow, is visible on aerial photographs as a series of earthworks. This system likely dates to the mid 19th Century with the Knight family's agricultural improvements.

A post-medieval water meadow system, known locally as a catchwater meadow, is visible on aerial photographs as a series of earthworks east of Cornham Farm, Exmoor. Centred at approximately SS 7541 3929, six gutters are visible either side of a large central leat. The leat runs approximately east-west downslope towards Bale Water, while the gutters run along the contours of slope. This system does not appear to be connected to any local farmyards, suggesting that this was a detached system which only distributed water to the fields and not liquid manure or other fertilisers. Catchwater meadows used a series of approximately parallel gutters to distribute flowing water evenly over the surface of the meadow in order to prevent freezing in winter and encourage early growth in spring, thereby providing extra feed for livestock. Most of the Exmoor improvement farms constructed in the mid 19th Century have some form of water meadow system; the land agent employed by the family, Robert Smith, was considered an expert in water meadows, and constructed a great number of them within the former Royal Forest. [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]