468 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
It is a curious fact that in this entry the clerk originally wrote 
that Drake “ began the River”—z.e. /eat—instead of “‘ to bringe in 
the River” —7.e. water ; and that he ‘‘ performed” the work instead 
of ‘“effected,’—the former expressions being struck through, I 
do not think these corrections, and especially the first, at all un- 
important. 
So far we have been dealing with direct facts; I have now to 
invite attention to certain inferences, 
Two things are self-evident with regard to this work—the first, 
that Drake completed it, under his composition or contract 
aforesaid ; the second, that he did not do the whole of it. To go 
further, we must consider the character of the leat itself. It was 
originally, in the words of the Act and other contemporary records, 
a mere “ditch or trench,” at the outside six or seven feet wide, 
and not exceeding two feet in depth—simply a channel cut in the 
earth, banked up in the ordinary fashion of the ancient mill and 
miners’ leats, with the material excavated. It was not 25 miles in 
length, but 17; and for half its course was simply the utilization 
of an older leat conveying water from the Meavy to Warleigh, and 
known as the Warleigh Mill Leat. 
There are three witnesses to the existence of this ancient 
Warleigh Leat.. First we have the tradition of the oldest residents 
in Sheepstor and Meavy that Drake did not make a new channel, 
but adapted an old one. This I have heard from several indepen- 
dent sources ; and it was strongly insisted upon by an old man 
named Giles, who died a few years since at an advanced age, the 
repository of a great fund of district lore. Secondly, there is the 
actual existence of a stream of water issuing out of the Plymouth 
Leat near Roborough Mills, and flowing thence to Warleigh, a 
distance of nearly four miles, which cannot be classed with the 
supplies afforded to the estates of Whitleigh, Manadon, and Ham, 
through which the Plymouth Leat passes, and which it is said were 
granted in payment, or part payment, for the land taken. Thirdly, 
there exists documentary proof; for in the oldest extant record 
(1751) of the high rents of the manor of Sheepstor, of which 
Mr. John Bayly is now the lord, we read, “ Another acknowledg- 
ment of one penny payable by Walter Radcliffe, Esq., for the 
running of Warleigh Mill Leat into Meavy River above Plymouth 
Leat headweare.” 
This entry at once settles the position of the Warleigh Mill 
