More information : The disperse remains of an extensive system of Post Medieval
warping drains were seen as cropmarks and mapped from good quality
air photographs. Stretches of drain ranging in length from 200m to
760m are visible as deep broad stepped channels flanked by
retaining banks. The main concentrations of the system are centred
at SK 8165 9810, SK 8211 9808 and SK 8300 9800. The system appears
to have been fed by the River Trent, Ravensfleet warping drain and
Jenny Hurn Drain. (Morph No. LI.649.1.1, 650.1.1)
This description is based on data from the RCHME MORPH2 database.
(1)
Warping was a means of agricultural improvement which worked by
engineering the deposition of a fresh topsoil of river-borne silt.
At high tide channels carried the river water to flood the land
which was to be improved; the waters loss of momentum as it spread
over open land caused its alluvial burden to settle and the
channels then carried the water away again leaving behind a deposit
of rich finely-sorted soil. Containing banks were built around the
parcels for warping and the operation was controlled by sluices in
the river bank. The channels were from the beginning drains in
form and function, since the water was simply a means of carriage.
A number were therefore retained without alteration after the
completion of warping to function as permanent surface drains, or
to be available for re-warping.
The technique of warping was much used from the end of the
eighteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth in those areas
where it could be profitably be employed. The whole undertaking
was one of the most striking aspects of the extension of cultivated
land by the efforts of landowners and entrepreneurs of this period.
(1a) |