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Summary

A catch meadow of probable nineteenth or early twentieth century date is visible on aerial photographs of the 1940s as parallel earthwork ditches following the contours of the combe slopes north of Mowlish Barn.
Catch meadows are usually found on combe or hill slopes and are designed to irrigate pasture by diverting water from a spring or stream and passing it along the slope via a series of roughly parallel channels or gutters. When irrigation was required the higher gutters were blocked, causing water to overflow from gutter to gutter, thereby irrigating the slopes below.

Location

Protected Status: none recorded

Other References/Statuses: none recorded

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• CATCH MEADOW (XIX to XX - 1801 AD to 1946 AD (Between))

Full description

Royal Air Force, 1946, RAF/106G/UK/1412, RAF/106G/UK/1412 3082-3083 13-APR-1946 (Aerial Photograph). SDV352504.

Catch meadow gutters are visible as earthwork ditches.

Hegarty, C. + Knight, S. + Sims, R., 2013-2014, South Devon Coast Rapid Coastal Zone Assessment Survey National Mapping Programme Project (Interpretation). SDV351146.

A catch meadow of probable nineteenth or early twentieth century date is visible on aerial photographs of the 1940s as parallel earthwork ditches following the contours of the combe slopes north of Mowlish Barn.
Many catch meadow systems are believed to date to the post medieval period, although it is likely that they were first developed in the medieval period and often continued in use into the twentieth century. Catch meadows provided a simple, inexpensive and effective form of irrigation. When irrigation was required water was diverted from a source such as a pond, river, spring or spring-fed stream and passed along the meadow slopes via one of the higher gutters. This gutter was caused to overflow and the lower, roughly parallel gutters then ‘caught’ the water as it flowed downslope, causing it to be redistributed evenly over the surface of a meadow below. This gently flowing water, often deliberately tapped from ‘warm’ springs, prevented the ground freezing in winter and encouraged an ‘early bite’ of pasture growth in the spring, thereby providing extra feed for livestock, particularly important during the hungry gap of the March and April. In this instance the system appears to have tapped the channelled stream which flows along the combe bottom, which rises from springs to the west. A section of the streams former, unregulated course might be visible as an embanked ditch at circa SX95228080.
The gutters are visible on aerial photographs taken later in 1946 but cannot be identified in later years. The fields in which the gutters were visible are now under arable cultivation and the catch meadow gutters have been levelled.

Sources / Further Reading

SDV351146	Interpretation: Hegarty, C. + Knight, S. + Sims, R.. 2013-2014. South Devon Coast Rapid Coastal Zone Assessment Survey National Mapping Programme Project. AC Archaeology Report. Digital.
	Linked documents:1
SDV352504	Aerial Photograph: Royal Air Force. 1946. RAF/106G/UK/1412. Royal Air Force Aerial Photograph. Photograph (Paper). RAF/106G/UK/1412 3082-3083 13-APR-1946.

Associated Monuments: none recorded

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events

• EDV6127 - Rapid Coastal Zone Assessment Survey National Mapping Programme (NMP) for South-West England - South Coast Devon (Ref: ACD618)

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