More information : SE 5551 7948. A stream, initially a tributary of Holbeck, was diverted by the monks of Byland Abbey from near its source in Duckendale and channelled west to the abbey. Part of the above from SE 5543 7936 - SE 5538 7911 - SE 5519 7908 runs as an aqueduct in a circa 1.5m wide stone-lined channel on a 5m wide earth and stone bank raised 0.5 - 1m above the surrounding fields. Damaged condition in February 1984. (1-1b)
Scheduled Monument Notification. (2)
The leat was investigated and part of its course surveyed during the EH: Byland Abbey Survey between 2008 and 2010.
As stated by authority 1, the leat originates near to Wass village and was built to divert the flow of a number of small springs and streams which formerly flowed eastwards as the headwaters of Holbeck, westwards to the abbey (SE 57 NW 1). To achieve this, the leat had in places to be embanked to maintain its level across low ground. The first of these embanked sections lies outside the area surveyed, but is clearly depicted on Ordnance Survey 1:2500 mapping (3a) north of the Wass to Byland road as the latter heads first south and then west out of Wass village. By the time the leat enters the area of survey at SE 55185 79080 it is a cut channel, c 1m wide at the base by 0.5m deep which runs due west immediately north of the Wass road. There are indications that this channel was originally stone-lined but the visible stonework is obscured by vegetation and slumping and hard to interpret satisfactorily. West of the drive to Abbey House the feature now veers to the south-west to head in the general direction of College Farm, but this is clearly a post-Dissolution diversion (it cuts a number of banks and possible wall-lines) and the original, monastic, course is visible as a low spread embankment that continues the previous line almost due westwards across low-lying ground. This embankment was recognised from APs as far back as 1993 during the Howardian Hills Project, but it and other earthwork banks within the field were misinterpreted at the time as representing a series of fishponds (SE 57 NW 101, auth 1) and have subsequently been identified, erroneously, as the sides of a series of monastic enclosures (3b). The embankment turns a sharp right-angle at SE 54862 79098 and runs up to the southern edge of the field just west of the junction of the Wass and Oldstead roads and cannot be traced further, but various 18th-century maps (3c and 3d) show that the leat formerly continued due south beneath what is now Abbey Inn, through the grounds of Mowbray House, to discharge into the stream that runs through the precinct just east of the bridge carrying the Coxwold road across that stream. Abbey Inn was built in 1845, and this southern section of the leat was probably filled in and the waters diverted into their present course at that time. Harrison (3e) has correctly suggested that a subsidiary leat formerly branched off this southern section within the grounds of Mowbray House and ran due east to flush the drains beneath the latrines at the lay brothers' range on the west side of the cloister. It is likely that another branch - which is still visible as an earthwork embankment north of the Oldstead road - flushed latrines and otherwise brought water to buildings (eg SE 57 NW 125) in the Great Court as well.
Part surveyed at 1:1000 scale and part recorded from documentary evidence as part of the EH: Byland Abbey Survey (features LT2 and LT5). See plans and report (3f) in the NMR for further information. (3) |