MSO11496 - Post-medieval water management and water wheel at Yenworthy Farm (Monument)

A water course runs through Yenworthy Farmstead. It was altered during the 19th Century to power an overshot water wheel, which powered a barn thresher, and to provide water to a catchwork system downstream of the site.

Fed by a pond and water piped to wheel pit. Was an iron wheel 16 feet diameter and 3 feet wide. The wheel and machinery is covered by the collapsed roof of the barn making further investigation impossible. The wheel was made by WC Radford of Barnstaple and was used to work a barn thresher. [1] SS 80658 48741. The collapsed barn has been removed and the site cleared. The stone built wheelpit, 6.8 metres northeast to southwest by 2.4 metres has been excavated to a depth of about 3 metres revealing the top half of the in situ iron wheel. It is 4.4 metres in diameter and 0.9 metres wide with some of its wooden paddles still in place. The wheel was overshot and was fed from a pond formed by an earthern dam some 50 metres to the south. The old leat chanel from the pond, collapsed and partly infilled, is still evident though the water has been rechannelled underground and now exits in the wheelpit below the original leat. It is channelled away under a modern building and can be seen briefly at SS 80672 48759 before it rejoins its original stream. Engraved on the wheel is WC Rafarel Barnstaple though no date is evident. The pond appears on the 1888 Ordnance Survey map as well as a roundhouse on the site of the wheel so it may well have been in use by then. [2,3] The Tithe Map for Oare shows a stream or leat beginning at SS 8067 4859, running downhill along the field boundaries to Yenworthy farm. It carries water around the eastern side of the farm buildings and feeds a pond at SS 8067 4876, before travelling further downhill. [4] By the time the 1st Edition Ordnance Survey map was surveyed, the water management at the site had been substantially altered. It is noted that the water course is fed by a spring marked at SS 8068 4852. The original pond may appear to be extant, although it is not shown with colour and may have been decommissioned by this time. The route of the water course in this area (and the adjacent field boundaries) may have been altered here. A further pond had been constructed at SS 8066 4868 (shown in colour on map and mentioned by [3] as the pond formed by the earthen dam), and a water channel drawn from the leat below this pond from c. SS 8068 4871, to flow to the engine house recorded under MSO10660 (as described by [3]). The remaining route of the leat from the engine house is not clear. Another pond had been constructed to the north (downhill) of the farmstead, at SS 8064 4879 and again shown in colour. The water flow from both ponds into the leat below is controlled by sluices (MEM22849 and MEM22848); it is possible that the southern (uphill) sluice controlled the water flow into the engine house and the northern (downhill) sluice controlled the water flow into a catchwork meadow recorded as MMO1566, which is fed by the water course further downstream. [2] This arrangement is repeated on the 2nd Edition Ordnance Survey map. [4] The 2022 MasterMap data shows that the engine house appears to have been demolished and the route of the leat to the south of this area is not visible, particularly as another structure has been built here. The southern pond (in a reduced form) and the route of the watercourse to the south (upstream) from here is still shown. Both of the other ponds are not depicted, although parts of their original outlined can be traced in the boundaries of the site. The route of the stream is shown flowing to the northeast from SS 8065 4878. [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. [7]