MSO11834 - 19th Century water meadow at Higher House (Monument)

Water meadow system seen on aerial photographs around Higher House. [1,2] May be confused with the mill and leat (MSO11196). [3] Also lynchets seen on slide which may be water meadows. [4] A water meadow irrigation system of probable 19th Century date is visible on aerial photographs as earthworks cut into the combe slopes to the northeast and southwest of Higher House Farm. Centred on circa SS 8836 3964, the water meadow taps a spring fed stream, a tributary to the Quarme, which rises to the head of the combe some 900 metres to the southwest and feeds into the River Quarme at Codsend Bridge, roughly 150 to the east. This is an example of a type of water meadow known as catchwork or field gutter system, commonly found on combe or hill slopes and designed to irrigate pasture by diverting water from a spring or stream. The water is carried along the valley sides via one or more channels or gutters and when irrigation was required the gutters were blocked, causing water to overflow from gutter to gutter, 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 March and April. One of the gutters is partially depicted on the 1st Edition Ordnance Survey map; the map indicates the water meadow had therefore been constructed prior to 1889, although the system may have passed out of use by this time. On the combe slope the gutters can also be seen to cut the line of several strip lynchet field boundaries, of possible medieval date. [5-10] This record was enhanced as part of the National Record of the Historic Environment to Exmoor National Park Historic Environment Record data transfer project. [11]