The ancient stream that has shaped Tiverton for nearly 800 years
From medieval engineering and clothmaking to public health scares, unruly perambulations and an ambitious restoration project, the Tiverton Town Leat has been woven into the life of the town for centuries.
For generations it carried water down Tiverton's streets, past homes, workshops and businesses, supplied people with one of life's most basic necessities and helped shape the town that grew up around it. Today, stretches of the Tiverton Town Leat may be dry, hidden underground or easily overlooked, but its story reaches back almost 800 years – and there are determined plans to make water flow through the heart of the town once again.
That extraordinary history was explored by Oliver Nicholson at a Tiverton Civic Society talk on Tuesday, September 15, taking an audience from medieval Devon through the rise of Tiverton's cloth industry, the sometimes less-than-sanitary realities of Victorian life and the much-loved tradition of walking the course of the Leat.
Oliver, a former professor of late Roman and early Medieval studies at the University of Minnesota and a trustee of the Friends of Tiverton Town Leat, has a particularly long association with the watercourse. He told the audience he had taken part in every perambulation since 1961 and today describes himself as the person among the Friends who particularly looks after the history.
The evening was opened by Tiverton Civic Society's Jeremy Salter, before Oliver was introduced to speak about the past of the Leat. Philip Hill, who has played a major role in efforts to protect and restore it, had been expected to contribute to the event but was unable to attend following a hip operation.
Yet perhaps the best description of why the Leat still matters came not from the present day, but from Tiverton historian Martin Dunsford more than two centuries ago. Oliver quoted Dunsford's description of it as: "This fine stream of water, the beauty and peculiar blessing of Tiverton."
It is a phrase which, almost 250 years later, still seems remarkably apt.
A medieval lifeline
The origins of the Leat take the story back to around 1240. Its upper reaches were natural streams, gathering water before reaching Chettiscombe, but from there medieval engineering was used to bring water towards Tiverton through an artificial channel.
Oliver said: "As far as Chettiscombe, it is a natural stream – or rather quite a number of natural streams, because it takes all sorts of tributaries in.
"It was then dug out in the 13th century to bring the water into the town. The last two or three miles were brought into Tiverton artificially."
The arrangement was a generous one. The town was entitled to half of the water during the summer and one third during winter, and later measurements demonstrated just what a substantial supply that represented.
Oliver said that when the flow was measured in September 1874 it was estimated at around half a million imperial gallons a day.
"That's a lot of water," he said. "And that was deliberately measured in September – not desperately dry, but not during a heavy rainstorm either. In winter it produces a great deal more."
One of the most intriguing parts of Oliver's talk was his challenge to one of the best-known stories attached to the Leat.
For generations, its gift to Tiverton has often been associated with Isabella de Fortibus, Countess of Devon. But Oliver argued that the ownership of the land from which the water was taken makes that traditional version of events problematic.
He said: "Everybody knows – or thinks they know – who gave it to us.
"The trouble with Countess Isabella is that she can't have given the Town Leat, because it wasn't hers to give."
Tiverton itself was associated with the Redvers Earls of Devon, but Chettiscombe was held separately through the Courtenay family. Oliver instead pointed to Alicia de Ros, the Courtenays' sub-tenant at Chettiscombe, whose name appears in records from the period.
He said her family connections may also provide a clue as to how such an ambitious piece of medieval water engineering was achieved.
Alicia came from a northern family associated with Rievaulx Abbey, the great Cistercian monastery in Yorkshire. Cistercian communities became exceptionally skilled in manipulating streams, building channels and using water power, particularly as wool production expanded.
Oliver said: "They got really good at hydraulic engineering. They managed to redirect rivers and they had all these small streams coming down the hillsides.
"They were then able to use those streams to operate fulling mills."
Fulling was part of the preparation of woollen cloth, using water-powered hammers to work the material. The finished cloth could then be stretched on frames using tenterhooks – the origin of an expression still familiar today.
Whether Alicia de Ros was herself directly involved in Tiverton's emerging cloth trade is harder to establish, but Oliver suggested she would at least have moved in circles where the necessary engineering expertise was understood.
That connection between water and textiles would become increasingly important as Tiverton grew into a major cloth-producing town.
Water running through the streets
For centuries the Leat was not simply a stream somewhere on the edge of Tiverton. Water ran through the built-up town itself.
A map of Tiverton from 1790 shows branches travelling through streets including Bampton Street, Castle Street and St Peter Street. Oliver said the water reached streets throughout the eastern side of the River Exe and was even taken across the old Exe Bridge into Bridge Street.
People could simply collect water from the channel, while in some cases smaller pipes were taken from it directly into properties.
Oliver said: "Some people just went into the middle of the road and dipped from it, but there were also little pipes that piped it into the house.
"That was allowed. It didn't count as a diversion, so you could pipe it into your house and you had running water."
The physical shape of parts of modern Tiverton may still contain clues to that earlier world.
Oliver highlighted Market Terrace, where an early 17th-century affidavit referred to a route beside the Leat which had to remain accessible to the water bailiffs responsible for maintaining it.
He said: "One of the things specified in this affidavit is that the path next to the Leat had to be wide enough for a man with a horse, or a donkey, with two panniers on it to clean the filth out of the Leat and put it into the panniers.
"I think that's why that path is so broad."
By the early 1600s, the town authorities were certainly taking the protection of the water supply seriously.
King James I granted Tiverton its borough charter in 1615, creating a corporation to govern the town. Among its first burgesses was John Cogan, whose name remains familiar in Tiverton through Cogan's Well.
In 1627, bylaws prohibited people from diverting the Leat and imposed fines for washing cloth or discharging water used in dyeing into it. Pigs, geese and other nuisances were also a recurring problem.
There is evidence, too, that the tradition of inspecting the route is far older than many might imagine.
Oliver said churchwardens' accounts from the 1620s record bells being rung for a perambulation of the Leat.
"It was a feature of life," he said.
A walk with a serious purpose
Today the Tiverton Town Leat Perambulation is one of the town's most distinctive traditions, taking place every seven years and drawing hundreds of people.
Historically, however, walking the course was not simply an enjoyable communal day out. The inspection helped assert Tiverton's rights to the water, check its condition and ensure that landowners had not interfered with its route.
That became particularly colourful during the 18th century.
Martin Dunsford, the Tiverton historian whose words provide the title to Oliver's handout, was deeply critical of the old town corporation and used the Leat as part of his wider battle against its authority.
In 1773, parishioners formally claimed the stream known as the Town Leat and declared that nobody had the right to divert it. The following year saw a substantial perambulation, with diversions and obstructions reported back through the revived manorial court.
By 1788, that brought the water bailiffs into direct conflict with Tiverton's then mayor, Henry Osmond, whose home at Pinnex Moor House stood close to the route.
The mayor was discovered to have made a diversion from the Leat himself – despite rules prohibiting exactly that.
Oliver's account of what followed could comfortably belong in a period comedy.
The bailiffs and a group of boys were walking the course, carrying cakes which were traditionally distributed along the way, when the procession crossed the mayor's land. Complaints followed that his grass had been damaged.
Oliver said: "The mayor didn't take kindly to this. His housekeeper summoned the bailiffs to appear before the mayor at four o'clock.
"His housekeeper told them they were 'damn rogues', that the mayor would soon send them to jail, and then threatened to send for young Mr Osmond to horsewhip them out of the house."
Behind the entertaining detail was something more significant – a centuries-long determination by local people to protect access to the water.
That principle survived into later legal consideration. An 1841 counsel's opinion concluded that while landowners were not necessarily responsible for repairing the Leat's banks, those with an interest in the water – essentially the people of Tiverton – retained rights to enter land to carry out necessary repairs.
When Tiverton's water turned unpleasant
By the 19th century the Leat was still invaluable, but Tiverton itself had changed dramatically.
The traditional woollen cloth industry declined, while John Heathcoat's arrival brought a new generation of textile manufacturing to the town. Population growth followed.
Oliver said Tiverton had a population of roughly 6,000 in 1801, rising to around 11,000 by 1851.
The problem was where everybody would live.
Much of the growth was accommodated not through huge expansion of Tiverton's boundaries, but by cramming additional homes into existing courts and yards.
Oliver said: "Very little of the town expanded. It was actually a matter of infilling.
"There were houses built inside the courtyards, and the courts were not sanitary places."
By 1851, the conditions were alarming enough to bring government inspector T.W. Rammell to Tiverton.
His report described serious sanitary problems, and the Leat inevitably suffered from what surrounded it.
The contemporary material used by Oliver records that regulations forbidding people from throwing filth into the water were being breached "every day with impunity". At one stretch of the Leat, cleaning reportedly removed 16 cart-loads of black and green deposits of what was described as "a most offensive character".
There had also been cases of cholera in the town, while contaminated wells offered little comfort to anyone seeking an alternative drinking supply.
Oliver said: "It wasn't the fault of the Leat. It was the fault of what was being done to the Leat.
"The sanitary conditions in general were foul."
By then, he added, water from the Leat was probably being used more extensively for washing rather than drinking.
"People were using well water for drinking," Oliver said. "That wasn't actually that much better, because things had got into the water table."
Victorian civic improvements followed rapidly.
Sewer construction and reconstruction accelerated after the 1851 report, and another examination of Tiverton's water supply and drainage was carried out by engineer A.W. Estridge in the 1870s after an outbreak of scarlatina.
In 1880, waterworks were built at Aller, using water from the Leat which was filtered before being carried into Tiverton through eight-inch iron mains.
The original scheme cost £4,000, with further improvements in 1886 costing another £1,600. By the end of that decade, most homes in the town were connected to a piped supply, supplemented with additional water from Warnicombe.
One particularly Devon-flavoured footnote survives from those improvements. Tiverton Borough Council employed a water diviner during the work, prompting ridicule from newspapers in London.
The joke was slightly undermined by one detail – according to the historical account, he actually found water.
A tradition with a mischievous streak
The arrival of modern water supplies did not end the importance of the Leat, nor the perambulation.
By the 20th century the walk had developed a reputation for traditions that could be somewhat more physical than a modern guided heritage stroll.
The historical notes from the Civic Society evening record the ducking of Cllr J Chown during the September 1954 perambulation.
But it was a story from 1961 that particularly amused Oliver.
Two newspapers served Tiverton at the time, the Tiverton Gazette and the Devon and Somerset News. During that year's perambulation, the settling or filtration ponds at Aller were no longer in use but remained open.
One photographer was apparently not universally popular.
Oliver said: "The photographer of one of the newspapers was not a popular man.
"He was not only pushed into the filtration tanks with all his camera equipment about him, but he was photographed climbing out by the photographer of the alternative newspaper."
The resulting image duly appeared on the opposition paper's front page.
Oliver added: "If you'll permit the expression, it was a front-page splash."
It was also, he recalled, an energetic perambulation for everyone else. Alderman Stagg, the bailiff leading the procession, walked the route at what Oliver described as "sort of Rifle Brigade speed", leaving some participants struggling to keep up.
Yet beneath the humour is an affection for the tradition which remains remarkably strong.
Oliver's own memories span more than six decades, and another member of the Friends told the meeting that the perambulation still has enough emotional pull to bring family members home from across the world.
The speaker said: "My kids come back every seven years, wherever they are in the world, because they're not going to miss a perambulation.
"It's part of it. Then you've got the newcomers who have never heard of it and come along for a nice country walk."
Around 500 people were said to have started the most recent walk, with perhaps 400 completing the route.
Bringing the water back
For all its history, the most important chapter for the Tiverton Town Leat may now be the one still being written.
Problems with the system became increasingly apparent in recent years. A weir at Chettiscombe required repair, work in which Philip Hill played a leading part, before leaks further towards Tiverton resulted in water entering private gardens.
Eventually, parts of the Leat had to be turned off.
Oliver said there had even been concern that the 2024 perambulation might not be able to go ahead.
It did – although with stretches of the Leat dry – and the determination to secure its future helped lead to the creation of the Friends of Tiverton Town Leat.
The organisation now has eight trustees and around 30 members, bringing together people with different skills including engineering, heritage and fundraising.
Oliver said: "Some are good engineers, some are knowledgeable about writing grants and that sort of thing.
"The Friends are an open society."
One of the first priorities has been discovering exactly what condition the underground sections are in.
Specialist camera surveys have been carried out through the pipework, giving the group a much clearer picture of what needs to be repaired.
The investigation also revealed just how much debris had accumulated.
Oliver said: "In the course of doing it, just up by Water Lane, they removed four tonnes of silt, grit, tree roots, garbage – all sorts.
"We've now got a very good idea of what needs to be done underground."
The proposed solution includes cured-in-place pipe lining, commonly known as CIPP, which can provide a new lining within an existing pipe rather than requiring the whole route to be excavated and replaced.
The long-term ambition is straightforward but significant: water flowing once more through the town, including Castle Street, in time for the next perambulation in 2031.
Oliver said: "We really are moving.
"We hope that by the beginning of the next perambulation we will have water running down the middle of Castle Street."
A possible £150,000 project
That ambition will require substantial funding.
During questions after Oliver's talk, Theresa, who is involved with the Friends of Tiverton Town Leat, explained that the group is preparing an application to the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Before submitting it, the Friends need firm tender prices from contractors. Three companies had recently walked the route and were expected to prepare bids.
She said: "We've taken about six months, and it's going to take about three months to put in an application to the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
"They require us to have gone out to formal tender and to have a price before we can put the application in."
Creating the specification itself has been a lengthy job, because the scheme is about considerably more than repairing pipework.
The proposed heritage project also includes community participation and environmental work.
Theresa said: "We've been working with Devon Wildlife Trust, who have given us a specification to provide a biodiversity report.
"We've also planned a school engagement project linked to Key Stages One and Two in the National Curriculum, with school visits, and Devon Wildlife Trust is going to do something called a BioBlitz, which is like a community biodiversity survey."
Until the tenders arrive, the exact cost cannot be known.
But the likely scale is already clear.
"We think there's an overall figure of £100,000 to £150,000 that we're going to have to raise," she said. "It's a really quite scary figure."
The group hopes to have clearer figures by Christmas, after which the Heritage Fund application can progress. If the anticipated timetable holds, a decision could follow next spring.
Failure to secure the grant would leave the Friends facing the daunting prospect of raising the money through other means.
But confidence in the project was evident throughout the evening.
Even the contractors carrying out the underground survey, Oliver said, became fascinated when they realised they were dealing not simply with another blocked pipe but with a watercourse stretching back to medieval Tiverton.
He said: "They were absolutely thrilled when they discovered this was a historical heritage thing and not just clearing a sewer, which is what they do most of the time.
"They were on our side."
There is perhaps a neat symmetry in that reaction.
For almost 800 years, the Tiverton Town Leat has repeatedly adapted to what the town required of it. It began as an extraordinary medieval engineering project, became part of Tiverton's domestic water supply, supported a thriving textile economy, survived polluted streets and Victorian public-health reform and eventually became one of the town's most cherished traditions.
Now the challenge is not creating it, but ensuring that something inherited from medieval Tiverton remains visible and meaningful in the 21st century.
For Oliver, there is little need to manufacture enthusiasm for the case.
Speaking about the heritage funding application, he said: "What was really easy about writing it was that you don't have to pretend it's something a lot of people are interested in.
"The good people of Tiverton really care about this."
Nearly eight centuries after somebody first had the idea of bringing water from Chettiscombe into the town, Dunsford's old description may therefore have lost none of its resonance.
A fine stream of water, indeed – and still Tiverton's "peculiar blessing".
Next from Tiverton Civic Society
Tiverton's past will give way to a debate about its future when Christie McCombe gives Tiverton Civic Society's next presentation on Tiverton's Eastern Urban Extension (TEUE) on Tuesday, October 27 at Tiverton Town Hall.
Christie has been Mid Devon's area planning officer for the TEUE – described as Tiverton's "Garden Village" – for the past seven years, during which a significant amount of housing and infrastructure has been planned and completed.
The project has involved navigating changing government and local authority requirements while balancing environmental considerations and the views of landowners, developers, community groups and other consultees.
The society says much of the more recent development has been attractively designed and includes badly needed affordable and social housing. However, questions remain about the scale of the development and its effects on Tiverton, particularly transport links, infrastructure and local services.
The evening will give residents the opportunity to hear about the development, ask questions and discuss how one of the largest changes to Tiverton in recent years is taking shape.
Doors open at 7pm and the talk begins at 7.30pm. Admission is £5 on the door, or visitors can join Tiverton Civic Society for access to its programme of talks. Everyone is welcome.
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