MEM23808 - Post-medieval water management features north of Rookery (Monument)

Post-medieval drainage ditches and water management features are visible on historic mapping, which may also have fed the waterwheel at Little Highercombe. This record incorporates data originally held in MSO9393.

Post-medieval field banks and drainage ditches to the north of Rookery are visible on vertical aerial photographs. [1-3] The 1st and 2nd Edition Ordnance Survey maps shows two streams, beginning at SS 9042 3083 and SS 9033 3067, meeting at SS 9037 3066 before heading south to a pond at SS 9037 3063. A water course then heads south from the pond, controlled by a sluice at SS 9038 3062 and heading down to Little Highercombe farmstead which it meets at SS 9035 3051. It may well have supplied the water to drive the wheel mentioned in MSO9393. Some of the features mentioned are still apparently extant, although a new pond has since been created at SS 9040 3075. [4-6] The information mentioned in [1-3] above was transferred from MSO9393. It is not clear how many of the features recorded within that record pertain to water management. [7] This record was enhanced as part of the National Record of the Historic Environment to Exmoor National Park Historic Environment Record data transfer project. [8]