Water

As people occupied the area and developed the land, the supply of water was crucial to survival.

River, Steams and Becks

River Crake

The River Crake runs along the eastern border. This effectively created a barrier until the first two bridges were built at Spark Bridge and Penny Bridge.  Travellers would frequently go across Morecambe Bay sands as the route to the rest of the country. Once the bridges were built people could then choose to use them as the way to reach Kendal and beyond.  Later a bridge was built at Greenodd, this affected the ability to navigate up river.

In 1980s the A590 road was altered in order to bypass Greenodd village and a new bridge was built.  By 2014 this bridge was altered to include a roundabout.

Newland Beck

Various tributaries start in the moors around Broughton Beck, then they join to form Moor House Beck which becomes Newland Beck.  This flows down along the border of Mansriggs effectively forming another barrier which had to be managed by creating a series of smaller bridges.  Newland Beck flows under the A590 road, into Plumpton and out to sea.

Gill Banks

The Gill Banks Beck flows along the border between the west side of Mansriggs and the east side of Osmotherley.  It mainly runs parallel to Old Hall Lane and eventually down through Ulverston area.  It travels through culverts until it eventually reaches the south Ulverston area and then out to sea.

 

Mansriggs, Gill Banks Beck

Barn Beck

Water drains from the hills behind Rosside gathering into Barn Beck which forms an approximate border between Rosside and Pennington.  This water leaves Rosside area, travels to join other water and goes under the A590 road at Three Bridges.

Wells

Before mains water, the houses and farms would try to have individual wells.  If this was not possible, people would have to share a communal well or draw water directly from a stream.  In ENMO area the rainfall is usually consistently moderate to high throughout the year so the water table remains high in the summer months.  This means that wells would not normally run dry.

In the past, wells had to be dug by hand and lined with stones, similar to the process for building a drystone wall.  The depth of the wells would vary.  For example, if water was found after 8 feet then it was logical to stop at this depth, otherwise the person would keep going until water was found. Also, they had to take into account the fact that the water table would go down further into the land in dry periods.

Today there are still a number of people who are not using mains water supply but the system they use is sophisticated enough to mean that it replicates the mains water experience.  For example, there could be a well near the house, with a pipe connected to a water tank located in the loft.  When water is used, the level goes down in the tank and this triggers an electric pump to draw water out of the well.  Therefore, water can be piped to a hot water cylinder and on to taps or radiators, or to cold water taps and toilets.  If you would like to learn more about how wells are constructed then click on this link to a YouTube video.

Well construction: YouTube

Toilets

Before mains water or the system mentioned above, there were outside toilets.  The website explains how they worked. Outside toilets.

Septic tanks were constructed once there was running water in the houses. The waste water from toilets, cooking and washing is either taken to a communal or individual septic tank.  This website explains how different septic tanks work: Family Handyman : septic tanks

Ditches, Land Drains and Culverts

Farmers and Land Owners would decide if the land needed draining, particularly if it was boggy causing problems for animals or not producing food.  The first action would be to dig ditches but they may also have put in land drains.  Before the days of pipes (clay, concrete or plastic), the drains would be made by using stone and slate.  The advantage of land drains was that animals and people could walk over them and grass could be grown on top of them – so no land was wasted.  The disadvantage is that they can become blocked.

Culverts have been used in our area for many years, in order to carry water.  It is a structure that can be built for different reasons.  Sometimes a culvert is constructed as a channel that goes under a road and therefore it stops the need for a bridge.  Other times it is used as a covered waterway running alongside a road, which means the road can run right to the edge of the culvert.  The old way to build them was using stones and slate but unlike the land drains the stone walls could be 2 – 4 feet high and the slates over the top could be 4 – 6 feet long. The problem with this method of construction is that it was built for the weight of people and animals walking over not the weight of modern-day traffic and vehicles.  The extra weight causes the walls to bulge and collapse making the top slates fall into the space for the water.  Today concrete and plastic have to be used when these structures fall apart.

Water Power

Water power was used during the early stages of the industrial revolution. The area had several mills making various products and an iron ore Blast Furnace at Newland.  The mills and the Blast Furnace are described in the research articles on this website. 

The water power was created by diverting some of the water from the main river, stream or beck into a narrow channel called a mill race.  The diverted water usually dropped into a mill pond that could store a volume of water.  This ensured that even if the level of water in the river, stream or beck varied there was still a constant supply in the mill pond.  The water would flow from the pond into the next section of the mill race and on to the water wheel.  Here the movement of the water onto the wheel would create the power needed for the production of the goods e.g. flour. In some systems there was also a manual sluice gate, so that the volume of water could be controlled on entering the mill race.  The people who created these systems had to have a great deal of skill to understand the use of gravity flow and work with the changing amounts of water available.

The websites below give explanations of how water wheels work.

Energy Education

Wikipedia

Water Media

The Sea

The water from ENMO parish flows out to Morecambe Bay and on to the wider sea. The difficulties of crossing Morecambe Bay are described in the section General History.  This is a wild and beautiful area with outstanding wildlife and stunning views; therefore, it is enjoyed by locals and visitors.