Agricultural History Review, Volume 55 Part 2 (2007), p. 317

I gave one of my first papers, together with a colleague (an ecologist), at a joint archaeological/ecological symposium in 1969. We sought to distinguish, in an historical-ecological context, the water meadow from the flood meadow and washland, and to emphasize the need to preserve examples of each. We were both taken aback at question time, when the distinguished field archaeologist, Collin Bowen, made a trenchant attack upon water meadows for the destruction they had inflicted upon the archaeological evidence for the earlier use and occupation of riparian lands. However grievous the loss, Collin Bowen would surely and warmly welcome, some forty years later, the present volume of cross-disciplinary studies – an approach he did so much to promote.

The volume arises from a conference held in Salisbury, close to the famous Harnham Meadows, in March 2004, which drew on published, archival and field evidence, enlarged by the insights provided by present-day practices, including current agri-environmental grantaided schemes. Jointly edited by a hydrologist and soil scientist, and by a landscape historian, the volume includes many highly relevant and well-produced maps, diagrams and photographs, which illustrate further the significance, location and functioning of this almost-lost agricultural technology.

There are contributions from Joe Bettey, Christopher Taylor and Tom Williamson, and two chapters by Roger Cutting and Ian Cummings providing what has been lacking for so long from such studies, the experimental evidence as might help assess the validity or otherwise of the various claims made for such irrigation systems – the heating of the sward so as to induce an early bite, the alleged fertilizing effect upon the meadow soils, and how such effects were optimally achieved through the timing and rapidity of surface flow. The findings of my co-presenter, Derek Wells, those forty years ago as to the comparative species-poverty of the watermeadows are generally borne out, albeit now more comprehensively and with much greater rigour. The substantial chapter by Hadrian Cook reports what I guess to be the closest study made so far of the hydrology, soils and underlying geology of the Wessex watermeadows. Another by Kathy Stearne assesses the feasibility of sustaining and extending the few remaining operational watermeadows. Without close knowledge of the variety and complexity of former systems, attempts at reinstatement might easily give an erroneous impression of past usage and, unwittingly, further impair such archaeological evidence as remains of the watermeadows themselves. There is distillation of the skills and experience gained by Peter Martin on the Brit-ford Water Meadows Site of Special Scientific Interest, on the River Avon near Salisbury, since the 1950s.

The threat to the ‘floated’ water meadows of the Golden Valley in Herefordshire from a natural-gas pipeline, described in the current issue of Rural History Today (13, July 2007), emphasizes the topicality of the issue, and the fragility of such historical evidence as does survive. All the contributors stress how much there remains to be discovered about the origins and development of such bed- and catch-works in Britain and the near continent, including the extent to which such visually-striking investment met an essential agricultural-need rather than being a response, in part at least, to fashion. Did water meadows ever realise the potential their boosters claimed?

The present volume is likely to have a very long shelf-life, whether as an aid to research and teaching, as a guide to the conservation of such meadows, or simply as an immensely readable and attractive reference work, frequently referred to by those fascinated by the farmed landscape.