SIR FRANCIS DRAKE AND THE PLYMOUTH CORPORATION. 469 
Leat. The Plymouth Leat, and the Plymouth Leat only, fulfils 
the condition. If the expression “running” the leat into the 
river should cause any difficulty, that is removed when we bear in 
mind that the term is perfectly correct as applied to the channel, 
and that we say the same thing now when we speak of putting a 
service into a main pipe—the object being in both cases the con- 
veyance of water owt. The Plymouth Leat is thus an original 
work to Roborough Mills only, and really issues from the Warleigh 
Mill Leat instead of the Warleigh Leat from it. 
This indeed is at once apparent from the plan of the leat, which 
clearly indicates that the original route was to Warleigh, and the 
divergence to Plymouth. Moreover, the section of the leat from 
the river to Roborough Mills is a ruder work than that from the 
Mills into Plymouth, and after centuries of improvement still 
preserves much of its original character of an ancient “ potwater ” 
stream. This is plainly seen, for example, in the remarkable bend 
at the entrance of the leat upon Roborough Down, about six miles 
from the Head Weir, where a surface detour is made three- 
quarters of a mile to avoid a cutting, which Mr. Bellamy, our 
Water Surveyor, informs me would not exceed ten feet, the 
straight course not being more than a quarter of a mile. It is 
impossible to believe that either Lampen or Drake beginning de 
novo would have made such a circuit; and manifestly we have 
here the simple difficulty-avoiding line of the old stream. So the 
course thence to the Roborough Mills is not that which would 
have been taken if Plymouth and not Warleigh had been in view. 
The Act, in its reference to mills near the Meavy, also points in 
all probability to this stream. Unimproved potwater streams of a 
like character, and probably of equal antiquity, may still be found 
in the neighbourhood—mere gutters, winding for miles in many a 
turn. One such runs from the Plym, at Plym Steps, to Redstone, 
at Sheepstor—a very good example of the rustic water engineering 
of those far back days. Here we can see what the Warleigh Leat 
originally was like before it was adapted to Plymothian purposes. 
What then was the amount of work to be done? A trench 
averaging six feet in width and two feet in depth, allowing for 
sloping sides and occasional increase of depth by embanking, 
would not involve 2,000 cubic yards of excavation per mile; not 
more, I believe, than 1800. 
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