Mill pond complex, W of Low Elm House, Bransdale

Summary

Well constructed mill pond with complex supply and outflow system, W of Low Elm House.

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Monument Types

Description

From NT VBS Yorkshire 1008:
"The millpond is situated on steeply rising ground W of the house. It is roughly oval in shape, but with a slight bulge towards the NE where the leat emerges. Along its N, E and S sides a substantial retaining wall has been required, incorporating a stone stair allowing access to the top and presumably to a sluice mechanism controlling water supply. Part of the mill pond remains in water, but most has silted up. The leat follows an arc round to the SE, but the last stage of its course has been obliterated." [1]-[4].

Site visit 15/07/1997:
In addition to the mill supply, another overflow outlet exists to the south, and is canalised through the garden complex of the house, before being ducted away east, presumably in a culvert.

Site visit 28/02/2000:
The mill pond revetment wall is c.1.5m wide at the top and up to 2.5m wide, with some rabbit activity and an area of potential collapse in the SE corner. There are also a few samplings growing on the dam wall.
The pond is fed from a watercourse which rises from a spring on the high moorland some 450m to the W; it is culverted (NTSMR 32330) under a track (NTSMR 32215) and enters the pond near the SE corner via a recently re-dug channel. This channel continues SW to act as a bypass leat, joining with a natural watercourse which runs past the pigsties (NTSMR 31322). A now blocked leat emerges from the NE corner of the dam wall, half way up the stonework, and curves around to the E to fed into a wheelpit which lies roughly parallel to the rear wall of the present cart shed (NTSMR 31319).
A second water supply can also be identified. From the culvert (NTSMR 32330) mentioned above, a deep curving channel can be seen taking a northerly alignment around a small field (OS 7661) before turning E to run between High and Low Elm Houses; the precise course has been slightly disturbed by a newly-dug and unfinished (at the time of the visit) drain. A prominent (and apparently recently re-dug) leat then runs S from this curving channel and follows a 0.5m high revetment wall, to join with the "dam-leat" (the precise junction is now unclear), and enters the wheel pit on a much straighter alignment. This arrangement completely bypasses the pond, and it may represent an earlier, and possibly original (medieval?), system of water movement, which was later superceeded by the pond and associated curving leat which would have produced a more regular and controllable supply [5] [6].

Site visit 23/04/2000:
No change [7]-[11].

The pond and its associated water supply leats are depicted on the OS 1857 6" map, but this is the earliest plan that has so far been discovered; this particular area lies on the edge of an independant holding that was shown as being tithe free on the 1845 tithe map, and it was not brought into the Duncombe/Feversham Estate until the mid 19th century (see further details noted under NTSMR 30788) [12].

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