1922.] 



The Beginnings of Field Drainage. 



585 



THE BEGINNINGS OF FIELD 

 DRAINAGE. 



H. G. EicHARDsoN, M.A., B.Sc, and G. E. Fussell, 

 Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. 



From the earliest times when we have any definite informa- 

 tion about agricultural practice in the island of Britain we 

 learn that men were draining land which was otherwise unfit 

 for pasture and tillage. The evidence for defensive works for 

 low-lying land against the sea or river is much earher than the 

 evidence for field drainage. Even where there is no documen- 

 tary evidence the dike and wall builders have left a monument 

 behind them : and although we may dispute as to the age of 

 the oldest dikes and walls at Romney Marsh or in Lincoln- 

 shire — and indeed archaeology seems as yet to give no very 

 certain answer — it is likely that the Romans saw them, it may 

 be already there when thev came, but at least constructed 

 before Rome abandoned Britain to its fate. The contractor for 

 inning marsh-land had already appeared in the thirteenth cen- 

 tury* — he was not, as is very generally supposed, a discovery, 

 under tho title- of undertaker, of Tudor England — and it is from 

 the thirteenth century, so far as we are aware, that the first 

 reference to field drainage in England occurs in the treatise 

 written by Walter of Plenley.f The drains Walter describes 

 are water furrows for running off the surface w^ater and he does 

 not mention any other form of drain. Since, however, the 

 Latin rustic authors were accessible throughout the IMiddle 

 Ages, Palladius in particular appealing to the mediaeval mind, 

 the classical methods of open and covered drains must have 

 been well known, even if, as is quite possible, the tradition 

 had not passed on unbroken from generation to generation of 

 farm labourers. Pal!adius appeared in an Enghsh dress early in 

 the fifteenth century, and there is every reason to believe that 

 the Chaucerian stanzas of the vernacular version describe, at 

 least so far as draining is concerned, not only classical precept 

 but mediaeval practice as well : the iarmer w^as told to make — 

 " A furrow three feet deep thy landes thorough, 

 With gravel or with little pebble stones 

 Unto the midward filled." 

 If stones were lacking, " sarment," straw or lop would serve. J 



*Js.<;ke Roll No. 911. m. Td. 



+ Welter of Uenleifa HuHhandrii, pix IT), 17. 



% PaUacUiis on Hoshondrie (Earlv English Text Sooiet}-), p. 150 : sarment 

 = Latin sai'menta, clippings from plants, especially vines. 



