The History
of the River Sid Catchment
Over the past, the catchment has been affected by a lot of outside influences which determine what the inhabitants have done with the land and the water; how people survived and how they thrived.
Pre Mediaeval
The catchment has seen nomadic tribes before the Bronze age but the remarkable collection of Bronze age barrows around the head of our catchment from around 1400 BC are evidence of people living here. Climate change was happening and people were on the move in the wetter weather. Many came across the English Channel and some migrated through Dorset. Gradually people settled and farmed.
By the time the Romans arrived the climate was warmer and drier but around 500AD there was a shift to wetter, colder climate. The Romans left, leaving some Celtic British farmsteads in scattered places. It may be coincidence that the Celtic word Snod meant a ribband or fillet – both historic words for ribbon. Then Saxons arrived bringing about the biggest change in the Sid catchment with the settled, important village (or town) of Sidbury by 800 AD. People lived in the village and created fields in some of the combes (Anglo-Saxon for deep valley) to farm there. The river will have been used for fishing as well as the domestic essentials of washing and drinking. Sidmouth was home to some sea fisher-folk. Most houses were mainly built of wood with thatch, making use of the local land resources, with only larger buildings and churches using stone. At this point there was a lot of tree cover in the Sid Valley: both on the hilltops and steep valley sides.
The Danes plundered but didn’t settle. After the Norman invasion Saxon culture was gradually replaced, farmhouses, separate from the villages, were built up the valleys and the population spread out, possibly expanding old Celtic farmsteads up the far ends of valleys. The Black Death had a big effect on the population and must have affected use of the land.
Mediaeval to Stuart
As we move into Mediaeval times we have more surviving records and evidence of how the catchment assets determined livelihoods. The well drained, fairly stony soil was mainly pasture with some arable crops, and sheep were very important – both for wool and milk. The population gradually increased and the hilltops were no longer wooded, but were heath and rough pasture, used for grazing more sheep. The steep, fast flowing streams were used for mills, not only for grain but there were also several fulling (or tucking) mills used to wash wool and cloth. These needed weirs on the river and streams to hold and divert water flow to the mill leats.
The cloth trade brought wealth; fords were replaced by bridges thus improving transport. Cloth could go out and grain could come in, though most transport of people and goods was still through deep, often muddy lanes by horses, panniers and the occasional cart.
External politics affected the cloth trade and by the mid 1600s, this was replaced by lace making and by the turn of that century more than 600 people in the valley were lace makers; mainly children and women. Tucking mills fell into disuse, but grist mills were still needed.
The many Marl Pits across the valley were in places of lime rich clay soil which was dug out for incorporating into cob and for fertilising fields. Woodland, mainly on steep valley sides, was well managed. Standard oak was used for building roofs, hazel and ash were coppiced for a number of uses, willow for basket and chair making, elm for furniture, boats and wooden pipes and alder for use in river structures as it keeps better under water. Alder also made excellent charcoal and gunpowder; which brings us to the Napoleonic wars.
Georgian and Victorian
These conflicts between 1799-1815 essentially closed Europe to wealthier Britons who had been going across the channel for tours and holidays. Sidmouth, from its origins as a fishing village had grown and started to become popular for visitors, especially with the mild winters of the south west. With the Continent now barred to them, this group began to build “cottages” in the town and outskirts and a period of building houses, lodging houses and hotels began, with the necessary associated businesses and smaller terraced houses.
The increase in buildings necessitated a planned water supply and a sewage network, where up until now “night soil” had been deposited on gardens or in waterways. While land was being taken over by buildings and roads, farming itself was changing. Dairy farms were increasing due to the loss of the cloth trade, and were making use of the rich meadows, fertilised in early spring by the “letting and flooding” which brought silt from the hills where it had been fertilised by the sheep.
Twentieth Century
The Forestry Commission was established and this increased tree planting; tractors started to replace horses and there was a decline in coppicing and the use of wood fuel and products. Orchards gradually declined. All these changes had an effect on natural vegetation and biodiversity.
By the middle of the century there was an increase in housing and hardstanding, producing more run off of rainwater, which Victorian pipework found it hard to cope with. Mains water, which had been supplied from local boreholes, was piped from outside the catchment. This meant springs were now free to flow over the land and into streams. In the second half of the century there was intensification of agriculture to improve yields and pesticides started to have an effect on insect life. Artificial fertilisers allowed more precise application and less run-off of manure, so streams, no longer used for spring flooding or for mills, were less controlled, and tended to straighten at times of high flow.
Climate change brought an increase of sudden downpours and flooding increased causing damage to property. Weirs were built to hold up the flow and alleviate this with the consequence that fish such as salmon could no longer get upstream from the sea to breed.
Supermarkets were dominating milk prices and many dairy farms in the valley went out of business. Meadows were then used for arable crops such as maize or rape, leaving soil vulnerable to autumn and winter rains. To balance the effects of farming on nature, the government introduced schemes for organic farming and nature friendly grants to help biodiversity. Farmers say they farm grants now, rather than land.
As we passed into the twenty-first century, the continued decline in farming incomes led to more family farms being sold up or managed by contractors with potentially less long-term interest in the land. Many have become holiday lets with barns and dairies converted to housing.
Which way all this will go for the catchment is impossible to tell. Tourism is needed, as is food production; people need housing, water and sewage disposal, and climate change affects it all!
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