More information : A linear mound, centred at SE 5511 7866, which lies across the valley bottom at Byland a little south-west of the claustral ranges, was investigated by members of EH's Archaeological Survey & Investigation team in 2004 as part of a rapid (level 1) field assessment of earthworks within the area of the monastic precinct. The assessment was carried out to inform site display strategies and production of a Conservation Statement.
The earthwork was first noted, and subsequently surveyed, by McDonnell, who identified it as a dam, probably retaining water to power a monastic fulling mill situated further to the south in the vicinity of Low Pasture House (1a-c). Subsequent accounts of Byland have followed this interpretation (1d-e). However, the surviving earthwork is considerably shorter (see survey plan in auth 1b) - and the pond it retained must therefore have been correspondingly smaller - than that shown in any of the published reconstruction drawings of the precinct layout. A level platform which exists at the south end of the dam may be the site of an associated mill, perhaps indicating that the documented mill at Low Pasture House was a replacement for, or was replaced by, a mill actually on the dam.
The full report of the assessment (1f) has been deposited in the NMR. (1)
The earthwork lies outside the area of the EH: Byland Abbey Survey of 2008, but a very cursory field inspection during the course of that investigation confirmed authority 1's doubts: the feature only exists on the southern side of the stream and it is hard to see how it could ever have functioned as a dam (2a). (2)
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