© CAHS & contributors 2016-9
Registered Charity 287289
From Newsletter 53: 2011
Cirencester: the
interpretation of
streams
This article about the possible routes of water
flows thorough Cirencester in the past, is
unfortunately too long to publish in this narrow
format. It is available in full in our wider format
that should be readable on a tablet held
horizontally, or of course on a computer screen.
Water, up to the 18th century meant power –
motive power, mechanical power and even
political power. Its energy could be harnessed
for many productive purposes, but the only
examples around us in Cirencester seem to be a
majority concerned with grinding corn and a
minority concerned with yarns, materials and
fabrics. In the Stroud valley, of course, the
balance is just the opposite.
This suggests to me that any discussion of
water courses around Cirencester has to take
into account the known and suspected water-
driven mills. These demand a flow of water, as
constant and powerful as possible, and an
escape for the water to get away when it has
done its job. To increase the power of the water
it is a good idea somehow to back up the water
upstream of the mill to create a head of water
which can be sent through the mill when
desired or otherwise allowed to run away down
an overflow. The background to all this received
a very good introduction when Robert Walls
published his study of Langley's Mill (Walls
1986, 4-17). He suggested that his work was
limited to the one mill but in fact he provided a
much wider study. All I want to do here is to
extend the study back a little in time and to ask
some more general questions….
Peter Broxton & Richard Reece