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This part of the Dore valley is well known for the remains of the late 16th and early 17th century
water meadow system constructed by Rowland Vaughan. In 1610
Vaughan published 'Most Approved and Long experienced
Water Workes containing The manner of Winter and Summer drowning
.....' This is probably the first account of irrigation in England.
Rowland
Vaughan was the second son of Watkyn Vaughan of Bredwardine,
Herefordshire. He had spent time in the Court of
Queen Elizabeth I under the patronage of his great aunt, Blanche
Parry, a close friend of the queen. It was the 'bitternesse'
of Dame Blanche's 'humor' which forced Vaughan into
the Irish wars where bad diet and standing waist deep in water
damaged his health and he returned, an invalid, to Bredwardine.
After
six months he recovered his health and resolved to go to the
wars in the low country. However he met a 'country-gentlewoman'
who had a manor and water-mill, and married her. The
couple first stayed with Rowland's father, Watkyn. After two
years, in Rowland's words, 'I began to expostulate with
myself what was best to be done to preserve my reputation
with my martiall companions, and with-all to give contentment
to my vertuous and loving wife'. It sounds a little as
if his wife was not overly fond of his old soldier friends.
From this time Vaughan spent much of his time walking in the
countryside. His wife wanted him to use his walks as an opportunity
to keep an eye on her miller. He begged her to find
a servant to do this, because he he thought that millers were
the least honest of all trades and 'therefore requires
the more paines to be taken in watching their water, &
looking to their fingers'. He gave in 'lest shee should
have held me careless of her good, and so ill deserve her
love, I obeyed her will, as many doe, and many miseries do
ensew thereby'.
Vaughan
and his wife were now staying at Whitehouse in Turnastone,
which was his property. The adjoining estate was Newcourt
which his wife had inherited from her mother, Elizabeth Parry.
(The Vaughans and the Parrys had a bewildering arrangement
of inter-marriages.) The combined property stretched
along the Golden Valley, on the west bank of the River Dore,
from Peterchurch to Bacton.
One
day as he was walking beside the mill stream he come across
a mole-hill a little way from the stream. The workings of
the mole had tapped into water and a small stream was flowing
from the base of the mole-hill. This shallow little stream
was 'one pace broad and some twenty in length'. Vaughan
was struck by the lushness of the grass where the water flowed
over it in comparison with the grass each side.
It
was this observation which inspired Vaughan to begin his system
of water-meadows - the periodic 'drowning' of grassland to
improve the quality and quantity of grass.
Vaughan
spent twenty years constructing his irrigation system in the
Golden Valley - approximately from 1584 to 1604. Six years
later he published his book. In this he advises the harnessing
of every water source for the 'drowning' of meadows in dry
periods, by means of sluices and artificial channels.
His
main artificial channel was his 'Trench Royal'. The first
half mile of which is 16 feet wide and 8 feet deep and the
rest 10 feet wide and 4 feet deep. This led, in a straight
line, from the Dore through Turnastone and then back to the
Dore again. By closing the downstream sluice, water could
be made to flow over the adjoining meadows. By opening it,
the water would be drained off again.
Other
trenches led from various stream flowing into the Golden Valley
to divert their water over the meadows. By these means the
value of his property increased from £40 to £300 per year. |
