The Exe Estuary

This series of maps set to the CITiZAN themes give us a unique cross-section of this historic estuary.

This legacy site takes you through the work  CITiZAN  conducted from 2019 -2020 as well as introducing and collating previous archaeological work and highlighting some of the amazing partners that we worked with in the area that you are able to get involved with. 

The Exe Estuary is one of the most well used and historically utilized estauires in the South Devon Rivers discovery programme

The natural shelter of the Exe Estuary has led to communities and industries. We have highlighted our favourite historical sites and narratives around the themes of coastal industries

Exeter could only function as a busy port thanks to the canal which connected the Quay to the navigable stretch of the Exe beginning at Topsham. The original canal was opened in 1566, with Matford Pool serving as the entrance until the canal was lengthened in 1676.

The first Exeter canal was originally created to provide a navigable waterway that would bypass a series of weirs which were blocking passage upstream of Topsham. Efforts to remove these weirs were unsuccessful, so eventually it was decided that a canal should be built to once again allow access to the port of Exeter.

John Trew of Glamorgan oversaw the construction of the canal along the right bank of the Exe from Matford Pool to Exeter Quay and was appointed chief engineer in 1563. In 1566 the canal had been opened and was the first in England to use the pound-lock (Clark 1960, 30).

The original canal was a little under two miles long around 16ft wide and 3ft deep.

For the first hundred years the functioning of the canal suffered from persistent navigational difficulties due to issues relating to tides, silting and disrepair (ibid, 31). Through successive episodes of lengthening, widening and deepening, the canal ran eventually ran to Topsham. By 1701 the Canal was at least 42ft wide and 14ft deep. By 1827 the canal was lengthened to its current entrance at Turf Lock. These modifications allowed the canal to accommodate vessels of 400 tons, and when the City Basin was dug in 1830 deeper vessels were able to unload regardless of the river level.

The canal served as a significant economic vein until the arrival of the railway in around 1844. The Railways arrival undermined its commercial value, and the increasing size of ships meant that the shallow approach of the Exe Estuary became increasingly problematic (ibid, 43).

Billed as Britain’s oldest ship canal, the Exeter Ship Canal remains an important historic waterway.

It is thanks to the involvement of local people, through organisations such as the Friends of Exeter Ship Canal (established 2016), that the historic character of this exceptional waterway has been preserved against development.

The recent designation of the Canal as a ‘Heritage Harbour’ by the Maritime Heritage Trust in November 2020 (One of four in the UK) gives important protections to the waterway and city basin. It is hoped that this recognition may represent the beginning of a regeneration of maritime skills, traditions, commerce and connectivity that this unique waterway once facilitated.

Lympstone is known to have been the seat of a Saxon Thegn known as ‘Saeward’ prior the Norman conquest in 1066 but there is no recorded maritime activity here until the 16th century, when fishing and shipbuilding industries developed along the waterfront. Lympstone had a significant shipbuilding industry throughout the 18th century and was an important fishing port until recent times.

By the 18th century shipbuilding Lympstone had become one of the main shipbuilding centres in the estuary. The shipbuilding came to a gradual end in the early 19th Century due to the shallow approach of the harbour limiting draft in a time were there was an increased demand for larger vessels and further introduction of iron shipbuilding.

However, Lympstone retained its maritime importance as it quickly became one of the most important fishing ports in the region. The sheltered harbour and its position next to the railway line was ideal, the shallow approach didn’t affect small fishing vessels. In 1869 there 63 fishing vessels were based at Lympstone and it remained an important fishing port well into the 20th century (Clark 1960, 68).

Perhaps one of the most difficult to picture industries connected to this now picturesque town is the towns connection to the whaling industry…

The recorded presence of a tryworks is a testament to Lympstone's engagement in the risky but potentially lucrative 18th century Arctic whaling industry.

Worthington Brice’s shipyard at Pasonage Stile is known to have fitted out ships with the necessary equipment for Arctic whaling (Dixon 1976) and the presence of a tryworks indicate that whale blubber was brought in here to be rendered into oil.

The trying-out process involves filling large iron or copper cauldrons with thin slices of whale blubber known as ‘bible leaves’ which were heated until the oil was extracted.

The boiling oil was then left to cool before being transferred into barrels which were then shipped out or carted off by packhorse. This process was carried out onshore until the mid-19th Century, when whaling ships were often outfitted with their own onboard tryworks. Being able to extract the oil onboard dramatically increased the number of whales that a single ship could process on an expedition, meaning each venture could be far longer and more profitable (Jackson 2005, viii)

Lympstones involvement in the artic whaling industry came through the exploits of the Exeter Whale Fishery Company.

The company operated from 1754 until around 1783 with its base of maritime operations at the Worthington Brice Shipyard in Lympstone.

It’s not clear what the main reason was for the development in the industry - it may have been due to the need for local economic diversification as Exeter’s cloth trade declined.

It may have been a response to the generous government subsidies on whale products in this period. Perhaps it was a combination of all of these - but when we take a closer look at this unlikely South Devon coastal industry, we uncover an intriguing and endearing maritime story centred in the Exe estuary.

Topsham is positioned on the peninsular above where the Clyst and the Exe meet at the head of the estuary. This location appears to have been used as a port since at least the 1st century AD, with archaeological investigations suggesting that Topsham may have been the site of the port which served Roman Exeter.

The beach at Topsham was certainly functioning as a port in the 13th Century and by 1316 a quay had been built under Topsham Cliff which remained in use until 1861 (Clark 1960, 51; Jackson 1972, 70). While the quay was positioned on the beach the Medieval settlement developed further up on the ridge, giving Topsham the two-level character still seen today.

The booming textile trade associated with the Exeter mills during the 17th century saw Topsham develop into one of the busiest ports in England, and throughout the 18th century Topsham was a busy seaport which handled the majority of Exeter’s international trade and held close connections with many overseas ports. The large majority of Topsham’s small population was associated in some way or another with the port, with much of the working population in jobs such as mariners, lightermen, customs officials and shipwrights (Clark 1960, 51).

Topsham’s proximity and connection to Exeter, along with the water depth available, meant that Topsham remained the primary port of the Exe estuary up until the 19th century.

 It was not until the extension of the Ship Canal to Turf in 1827, which allowed large vessels to reach the quay at Exeter, finalizing Topsham’s role as Exeter’s primary port (ibid, 49). From the 19th century Topsham functioned as a minor port which engaged only in small-scale coastal trade and the town has become increasingly less associated with the once bustling seaport. However, Topsham’s attractive historic waterfront is testament to this prosperity, many placenames within the town hint towards its rich maritime heritage (e.g. the Lighter Inn).

Shipbuilding has been an industry in Topsham since at least the Elizabethan period and by the second half of the 17th century shipbuilding had expanded along with the increasing trade of the port. The local demand for ships provided by Exeter, along with the abundance of raw materials supplied by Topsham’s extensive trade links meant that Topsham shipbuilders became particularly favoured. 

William Green is recorded as having built ‘nearly 100 ships and 400 boats in the 45 years before 1711’ (Clark 1960, 53), and by the end of the 18th Century between one and six ships were being built every year for the port of Exeter alone.

Throughout the first half of the 19th Century the shipbuilding industry expanded at Topsham, with 92 Exeter registered vessels being built at Topsham in the period from c.1800-1830. The majority of these were lighters, ketches, sloops, schooners and brigantines of under 200 tons, but some larger vessels were also built at Topsham such as the 469-ton Medina and the Hugh Fortescue of 502 tons. 

27 men-of-war were also built at Topsham during the Napoleonic wars, the largest of which was the Fawn of 500 tons (ibid, 56).

Many associated industries developed alongside the early shipbuilding at Topsham, with ropemakers, sailmakers, block-makers and anchorsmiths being referred to frequently in the Parish Registers. The four main Topsham shipyards in the 19th century all had subsidiary workshops which drove associated trades (Clark 1960, 53).

The introduction of iron ships, demanded different techniques and raw materials not easily available at Topsham. This caused the decline of the shipbuilding industry here.

Despite this Holman’s yard did construct one iron-hulled vessel in 1874. Ultimately Topsham was unsuitable for iron shipbuilding and the yard was soon converted into a drydock used only for repairs.

This rapid and almost complete decline in shipbuilding and associated industries, coupled with reduced maritime trade since the coming of the railway has meant that shipbuilding in Topsham is now a thing of the past - but Topsham’s impressive shipbuilding heritage should not be forgotten.

If you would like to experience some of the histories of Topsham in person then visiting the Museum or joining one of the guided walks arranged by the Topsham Society is a great way to do it. Otherwise, Topsham Museum Shop offers a selection of books and leaflets about Topsham on their website.

The paper-making industry in Devon developed during the 18th Century, with most paper mills located in south and east Devon in areas. The areas were relatively populated, prosperous, and connected to the main transport networks. The area around Exeter proved to be a particularly favourable location for the industry, shown by the cluster of paper mills around the port and running further inland along the Exe in Shorter’s 1938 distribution map of paper mills.

The strong and regular flow of the Exe and Culm provided water for power and processing, while the ports would have provided ample raw material in the form of sailcloth, rope, canvas, and rags, ‘paper-stuff’ was also imported into Exeter from Portsmouth and Plymouth (Magee 1997, 175; Shorter 1938).

The decline of the wool trade in the southwest at the end of the 18th Century meant that many wool manufacturers converted their mill buildings for use in other industries while continuing to employ the local labour force. As industrialisation and printing drove an increasing demand for both wrapping and writing paper, a large market developed in Exeter and by 1838 papermaking became the second most important industry in the city. A number of warehouses stored paper from the surrounding mills, which in part supplied the 21 printers listed in Exeter that year (Shorter 1938).

Paper mills in Devon declined around the 1820s after the advent of the papermaking machine, but many had already stopped due to local issues such as diminishing supply of raw materials or because of devastating fires. By 1846 other industries such as glove-, rope- and lace-making, along with the tanning industry had become more significant (Magee 1997, 176; Shorter 1938).

Post-war depressions, the waning of Cornwall’s mining industry and the coming of the railway are also likely to have contributed to this decline. In the 1930s the only paper mills still in operation were strung northwards along the main Great Western Railway. Despite the number of paper mills bieng greatly reduced by the 19th Century, the decline may have been ‘more apparent than real’, as the larger paper mills employed many more people than the smaller, more dispersed earlier mills (Shorter 1938).

Countess Wear was ideally positioned to allow access to both Exeter and the Exe estuary, so it is unsurprising that this location on a major leat remained an important milling site from Medieval times right through until the end of the 19th Century.

Countess Isabella built a mill at the site (adjacent to what is now Mill Lane) in 1284. The mill originally used the flow of the leat to grind corn. Around 1638 it was being used to make paper from rags, making it one of the earliest paper mills in Devon.

By the 18th Century, two paper mills are recorded at the site and are mentioned in Moore’s ‘History of Devonshire’ in 1829 (Moore 1829, 58), but they were in operation much earlier than this. One of the mills is thought to have operated from around 1704 until c.1884, and the other from c.1718 until c.1829 (Shorter 1938). These mills were among the only papermaking sites producing quality writing and printing paper in Devon at that time (as opposed to the coarser wrapping paper used for packaging), and they were the sole providers of newsprint for the Times of India (ibid). Superior paper for use as banknotes was also made at the site.

The mill complex at Countess Wear fell into disuse towards the end of the 18th Century when woodpulp was increasingly used in place of rags as the raw material, the buildings can still be seen on an OS map from the 1900s and the leats are still flowing today. The remaining visible structure is part of the new mill that was built in 1816 after the original one burnt down in May of that year. This new mill was amongst the first to have paper-making machines installed and continued producing paper until it was closed in 1885 (ibid).

Sets of parallel grooves cut into the rocks at Orcombe point and Maer Rocks have been interpreted as possible wheel ruts associated with the unloading of limestone being shipped in to supply the nearby limekilns during the 18th or 19th Centuries. The wheel ruts would have allowed ships moored off the coast to unload the limestone onto the beach which would then be loaded into carts and taken inland to nearby limekilns - in this case the Maer limekilns would have been one likely recipient.

The full lengths of the wheel ruts aren’t always visible as they are frequently covered up by sand, but the set at Orcombe Point has been recorded as being as long as 75m, and the set at Maer Rocks have been recorded as long as nearly 250m (Hegarty et al. 2014, 122).

Limekilns were used to heat limestone to temperatures around 1000 °C to convert the calcium carbonate in the limestone into calcium oxide, known as quicklime. Quicklime could be used for a wide variety of useful purposes, making the lime trade an important industry in Devon throughout the 17th and 18th Centuries.

Perhaps the most important use of lime in this part of the country was as an additive used to neutralise (or ‘sweeten’) the acidic soils found across southeast Devon to make them more agriculturally productive. 

Another important use for lime was in the processing of skins in the many tanneries. When dipped into quicklime animal skins could be cleaned very efficiently before being further processed into leather. 

The use of quicklime in the cleaning process would likely have been a significant development in Devon’s important leather industry in this period. Quicklime, which is very unstable and dangerous, would also be ‘slaked’ by adding water (very carefully!) to produce more benign materials for use in construction such as lime mortar, lime wash, or lime putty.

The remains of limekilns can be seen all over the South Devon landscape, but the largest concentrations of these intriguing structures are found in association with the coastline, rivers and estuaries. The ease of transportation and safe harbour facilitated by river estuaries such as the Exe allowed for the necessary bulky raw materials to be brought in by boat and unloaded close to the estuarine kilns which were suppling the Lower Exe Basin with lime products (Marshall 1805, 21).

Devonian limestone was transported up the coast from quarries at Babbacombe and Berryhead in Torbay and culm was imported mostly from Wales, although the north-eastern ports of Newcastle and Sunderland played an increasing role towards the end of the 17th century (Clark 1960, 134).

Throughout the 17th century ‘stone boats’ and colliers were bringing increasing quantities of limestone and culm into the Exe estuary for use in the estuarine kilns and by 1711 an estimated 15 000 tons of limestone were being burned by the Exe kilns every year (ibid, 82).

The lime industry declined in the early 19th Century, partly as artificial fertilisers began to replace quicklime for agricultural purposes, but the remains of these structures are dotted around the estuarine landscape and serve as beautiful and persistent reminders of this once thriving coastal industry. Many limekiln structures have become overgrown or have been adapted and incorporated into later buildings - sometimes serving as parts of garages, kitchens, flowerbeds, or even a Second World War gun position (Risdon 2020). Relict limekilns can sometimes be hidden in plain sight, but as local historian John Risdon pointed out in his talk for CITiZAN on the rural lime trade in South Devon in April 2020; "Once you start looking for limekilns, you start to see them everywhere".

Local historian John Risdon gave a facinating talk on South Devon’s rural lime trade for CITiZAN in 2019 which you can watch on YouTube.

Like all estuaries in the Uk, the Exe is littered with the remains of abandoned vessels and countless wrecks. Here we have chosen some of our favourite sites and their unique stories.

Important evidence for Late Neolithic settlement has been found on the east bank of the Exe at Topsham.

Excavations in 1975 uncovered 13 pits in association with Neolithic pottery and stone tools within the grounds of The Topsham School. The finds included Peterborough ware, Grooved ware and Beaker pottery, along with a scatter of worked flints, a perforated pebble, and a polished greenstone axe (Jarvis and Maxfield 1975, 246-7)

Scatters of lithic artefacts are the most common evidence for Neolithic occupation in Devon and lithic scatters associated with Late Neolithic activity are relatively widespread throughout the region.  

Devon appears to have seen relatively widespread occupation during the Neolithic, some areas in particular show evidence of more intensive activity and the concentrations of lithic finds around Topsham suggests that this area may have been favoured for Late Neolithic settlement. The presence of Late Neolithic pits and ceramics at Topsham supports the idea that this location was attractive for settlement during this period. Late Neolithic pottery and occupation features such as pits are rare in Devon, with evidence of Grooved ware being particularly scarce (Bayer 2011, 64). 

Although the course of the Exe would have been somewhat different during the Late Neolithic and sea levels would have been approximately 5m lower than today (Wilkinson and Straker 2007, 63), the head of estuary itself would likely have been in its present location. It is very possible that the peninsular formed by the meeting of the Exe and the Clyst proved to be an attractive location for settlement in prehistory.

The resources provided by the rich estuarine and riverine environments, the opportunities for trade and communication that the water facilitated, has meant that such locations often appear to have been favoured by prehistoric populations. Perhaps more evidence of lost prehistoric settlement lies hidden under the water and alluvial deposits of the estuary.

Roman military base at The Topsham School

The presence of a double-ditch enclosure on the east bank of the Exe just upstream of the head of the estuary has been interpreted as part of the boundary of a small Roman fort or supply base associated with a Roman port at Topsham.

Excavations undertaken by Exeter Archaeology in 2000 on the site of The Topsham School encountered sections of two parallel ditches running straight along the northwest edge of the school grounds. The ditches were traced for 58m before they curved northwards towards The Mede, suggesting that what they had uncovered were parts of the south-eastern edge of a double ditch enclosure (Exeter Archaeology 2000). The regular plan and distinctive V-shaped profiles of the ditches indicate that the enclosure was a Roman military site, while the pottery and coin finds date the occupation to between c.AD 50 and AD 85 (Sage and Allan 2004).

Predictions that the enclosure continues under the housing to the northwest have since been confirmed by reports from archaeological monitoring undertaken at sites on The Mede and Ashford Road which record the presence of substantial ditch features and Samian pottery interpreted as being associated with the previously recorded Roman defences. The fact that one of the ditches was uncovered during work at the junction between Ashford Road and Orchard Way may suggest that the defences were more substantial than previously thought, as that junction lies around 150m further to the northwest than the initial projections.

The enclosure would have been situated adjacent to the Exe in a location which provided excellent views of the estuary. It is thought that this defensive structure was associated with the port serving Roman Exeter which is generally believed to have been located at Topsham (Rainbird and Farnell 2019). The enclosure has been interpreted by most as either representing a fort protecting the harbour or a supply base which handled and stored the imported goods destined for Exeter.

A number of Roman sites have been discovered in Topsham, many of which are associated with the line of the Roman road running parallel to the course of the Exe which linked Topsham to Exeter (now Topsham Road and Exeter Road). Some of them are military in nature but others appear to have been related to the storage and processing of local and imported goods.

Finds along the road have hinted towards there being a supply of imported goods associated with the port at Topsham but findings from more recent excavations have emphasised just how significant Topsham and the Exe estuary were to Roman Exeter, the westernmost Roman centre and the commercial capital of Southwest Britain (Henderson 1999).

Recent excavations at Wessex Close (2015-17) have uncovered a large fourth Century aisled hall which has been interpreted as having been a multi-purpose building which incorporated ‘aspects of residence, warehouse and industry, including metal-working, crop processing and fish sauce production’ (the Romans loved fish sauce!) (Rainbird and Farnell 2019). 

The size of the structure alone makes it a large building in the national context and unique within the hinterland of Roman Exeter, which appears to have remained largely un-Romanised (Brindle 2016).

Evidence from the site indicates not only that local seafood products were processed at Wessex Close, but also that various imported goods were dealt with here including fine pottery from the Rhineland and eastern Gaul, glassware possibly from Italy, and Mediterranean foods and flavourings (Rainbird and Farnell 2019).

It has become increasingly clear that Topsham would have been an important port and processing place which was well-connected to the wider Roman trade network through which it supplied Roman Exeter with exotic products from the Empire.

Along the eastern bank of the estuary just north of Exmouth, earthwork features identified from aerial photographs and LiDAR data are thought to represent the remains of the former Medieval farmstead of Middle Halsdon.

Three rectilinear earthwork building platforms have been interpreted as being related to the Medieval farm buildings, while two parallel earthwork banks are thought to be relict field boundaries which formed part of a strip field system (Hegarty et al. 2014, 117).

One of these buildings is shown on the Withycombe parish Tithe map from between 1838-48, the other two building platforms identified are not present. This suggests that Middle Halsdon was once larger than may be inferred from historical mapping alone and the fact that these earthwork platforms are visible on aerial photographs and LiDAR suggests there could be good preservation of Medieval buildings below the surface (ibid).

Ordinance Survey maps from the early 1900s show a small settlement of scattered houses located on the eastern dunes of Dawlish Warren Spit which is thought to have been home to a small fishing community. At this time the eastern dunes (Outer Warren) were separated by a tidal inlet and a bridge labelled Bridge of Sighs linked it to the rest of the spit (Inner Warren).

A later OS map from the 1930s shows how the form of the spit had changed over the years and the settlement can be seen to have developed from a scattering of around 20 small buildings into a larger and more structured settlement labelled The Warren. The Warren is recorded as having around 30 houses (some of which had two storeys and a few of which were on stilts), and a shop with a post office counter. The Bridge of Sighs appears to have collapsed or was dismantled sometime before 1933 and most of the remains were excavated and removed recently as part of Dawlish Warren Beach Management Scheme, although it is likely that some of the remains still lie preserved beneath the sand (Wessex Archaeology, 2017).

By 1948, all but two of the buildings had been washed away, with the remaining two hanging on until 1965 (ibid). Scattered structural remains of The Warren were visible along the shoreline at low tide as recently as 2018

Earthworks next to a watercourse draining into the estuary at Dawlish Warren have been suggested to be the remnants of a possible 19th Century bedwork watermeadow system. Catchwork watermeadow systems are quite common in Devon, but the more sophisticated bedwork systems are relatively rare in the region.

Banks and ditches are visible in aerial photographs from the 1940s and 1950s running perpendicular to the course of the stream for a little over half a mile and covering an area of nearly 3 ½ hectares (Hegarty et al. 2014, 105). These features may well be the remnants of the ‘carriages’ and ‘tail drains’ which distributed the water across the watermeadow and back into the stream. A channel still marked on OS maps from the 1890s and 1900s is likely to have been the head main which diverted water from the watercourse (ibid).

The area is marked as marshland on maps from the 20th Century, so it could be that the watermeadow system fell into disuse or was abandoned late in the 19th Century, after which it became waterlogged and reverted to marshland.

Most of the earthworks along the southern edge of the stream are likely to have been levelled with the development of a holiday park which first appears as ‘Warren Beach Holiday Camp’ in OS maps from the 1960s, but earthwork features and possibly built control structures related to the bedwork system may still survive along undeveloped parts of the northern bank.

Watermeadows are defined by Historic England as ‘areas of grassland alongside a river or stream irrigated to produce plentiful hay crops and rich pasture’ (HE 2018, 1). Although early forms of watermeadow have been in use since at least the Medieval period, the 17th and 18th Centuries saw the flourishing of watermeadow systems across the country.

Developed watermeadow systems worked by diverting water from a watercourse into the surrounding fields though a series of channels carefully positioned so as to facilitate a steady flow of water across the surface of the meadow. Control structures such as sluices allowed the ‘waterman’ or ‘drowner’ to water the meadows for certain amounts of time and at certain times of year according to their needs. Winter watering aimed to encourage early grass growth by protecting the ground from frost and distributing nutrient-rich silt across the fields. When successful, winter watering allowed for rich pasture to be grown by mid-March which would feed flocks of sheep with nutritious young growth at a time when the winter hay stocks were depleted and several weeks before natural growth started in un-watered fields (Bettey 1999; HE 2018, 9).

The improved pasture allowed farmers to keep larger flocks which in turn would fertilise the meadows with manure, leading to significantly increased hay crops in May after the sheep were moved onto natural pasture. Another hay crop could be grown in summer (even in drought conditions), but usually the meadows were used for cattle grazing in late summer when the ground was dry enough to support them (Bettey 1999). The increased flock sizes facilitated by watermeadows pasture also meant that un-watered fields received more manure when grazed, which increased harvests of important cash crops such as wheat and barley grown later in the year. Williamson (2002, 59) quotes Thomas Davis, who wrote in 1794 that ‘the improvement in the value of the land is astonishing’.

Although watermeadows are no longer used, the potential of these systems to contribute towards things such as sustainable agriculture, river conservation and flood and drought mitigation is significant. 

Rich, drought-resistant watermeadow pasture could once again support the rearing of quality lamb and beef while also contributing to wheat and barley production (all without the need for expensive and polluting artificial fertilisers), peak flows in watercourses during winter and spring could be dispersed across large areas when necessary, and the filtering effect of the grass in watermeadows has been shown to reduce waterborne agricultural pollutants by up to 85% (Cook et al. 2008; Heaton 2019). 

At a time when increasing frequencies of high rainfall events are causing catastrophic flooding, our rivers are being polluted by siltation and agricultural runoff, and more localised and sustainable food production is becoming ever more important, a rejuvenation of watermeadow agriculture may in some cases represent an attractive alternative to modern industrial agriculture.  

The revitalisation of sustainable traditional land-use practices through the restoration of traditional agricultural practices and infrastructure is becoming an increasingly popular solution to environmental and humanitarian issues around the world.

Examples include the restoration of Inca terrace agricultural systems in the Peruvian Andes, the rehabilitation of traditional rice paddy agriculture in Japan and the Philippines, and the renewal of watermeadow systems in Germany and other parts of Europe. Some restoration of watermeadows in the UK has taken place in Hampshire, Wiltshire and Northamptonshire (HE 2017, 16-18).

Not only do rehabilitation projects such as these demonstrate how we can learn from past successes to work towards a more sustainable and resilient future, they also lead to an increased appreciation of, and connection to, past agricultural landscapes. Such landscapes were often deeply encultured, creating a confluence between the local people and their environment. It is the fading of the cultural aspects of these landscapes that is perhaps the greatest loss, but through the appreciation and protection of lost landscapes such as our watermeadow systems it is possible to listen to our past and restore cultural connections to our local environments.

The Exe estuary submerged river valley

What is now the Exe estuary is actually part of a submerged river valley stretching onto a huge drowned coastal plain which forms part of one of the world’s most impressive, submerged landscapes. 

This submerged stretch of the Exe valley is one of several spectacular drowned river valleys (known as rias) along the southwest coast which became flooded as a result of rising sea levels after the Last Glacial Maximum (or Ice Age). Other notable rias in the southwest include those of the Fal, Tamar, Dart, and Teign, and some of these palaeovalleys can be traced for many kilometres offshore (Antoine et al. 2003).

These rivers would once have been part of a vast riverine landscape which now lies submerged beneath the English Channel. It is likely that these southwestern rivers would have joined with the massive Channel River system which once coursed through the centre of what is now the English Channel and drained the waters of most of the rivers of southern England and northern France into the Atlantic. Alternatively, they may have formed a separate southwestern river system which made its own way west (ibid). Either way, before post-glacial sea level rise, these rivers would have ultimately reached the sea somewhere between the southwest Cornwall and the northwest tip of Brittany.

In the same way that riverside and estuarine locations have attracted more recent human occupation, these river systems are likely to have attracted prehistoric human and animal activity as, among other things, they provided water, food, raw materials and routeways through an increasingly forested landscape (Gaffney et al. 2009, 139; Hosfield et al. 2006). Submerged river valleys such as the Exe estuary may therefore preserve fascinating lost traces of past environments and human behaviour beneath the estuarine silts. 

Submerged landscapes such as these were once truly lost, and although early researchers such as Clement Reid caught tantalising glimpses of the submerged landscapes of the north sea through trawler finds and the intertidal remains of submerged forests, recent advances in fields such as marine geophysics and marine geoarchaeology have allowed researchers to explore and map these submerged landscapes like never before (see Gaffney et al. 2009 for a great introduction on how archaeologists study submerged landscapes).

Over the last 10,000 years sea levels in the South West have risen between 30-40m, with the present coastline being formed by around 6000 BP (Hosfield et al. 2007). This dramatic rise in sea level was a result of the rapidly warming climate associated with the onset of the Holocene which caused the enormous ice sheets that had formed during the LGM to melt. This released vast quantities of water previously locked up in glacial ice into the global seas.  

Evidence of Upper Palaeolithic (40,000-10,000 BP) and Mesolithic (10,000-5500 BP) human activity has been found throughout the south of England and north of France, meaning that this rich and dynamic riverine landscape was almost certainly inhabited by human populations throughout much of this period. Some of the most important British Upper Palaeolithic sites are found in caves along Devon’s south coast (e.g. Kent’s Cavern and Brixham) which would once have looked out across the low-lying coastal plain to the south (Hosfield et al. 2007). From sheltered vantage points such as these, Upper Palaeolithic groups may have observed herds of animals such as reindeer and aurochs and planned hunting expeditions in the river valleys below.

The rate of sea level rise would certainly have been noticeable over a single lifespan, so many of these Upper Palaeolithic and later Mesolithic groups (who were increasingly involved in the exploitation of coastal resources) would have witnessed the gradual drowning of this landscape as it was claimed by the rising seas.

It is interesting to wonder about what past human perceptions of such dramatic changes may have been, and the study of the human responses to this abrupt environmental change makes for a fascinating and increasingly relevant area of research, as with the pace of current global warming increasing and glacial ice retreats, sea levels are predicted to submerge parts of our coastal landscape once again (Bell and Warren 2013; Bell 2007; Gaffney et al. 2009, 161).

For more information on submerged prehistoric archaeology and landscapes have a look at the SPLASHCOS website