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Along the Moors - Lilleshall
The Improvement Scheme
With Lord Stafford’s interest in agricultural matters leading the way, a scheme to improve the drainage of the Weald Moors was drawn-up by his land agent John Bishton and successfully sent before Parliament for approval in 1801. The work of putting The Wildmoors Improvement and Drainage Act into practice was carried out by Bishton’s successor John Loch, who later published an account of the programme in 1820 after most of the work had been completed. At the turn of the 19th Century, Loch contended that a vast swathe of moorland, comprising some 1200 acres, became flooded every time severe rain fell, while a further 600 acres, in the west of the moors, was left in a ‘state of nature’ owing to drainage problems caused by the pounding of the River Tern at Longdon.
The main objective of the scheme was to create a drainage ‘run’ throughout the whole moorland landscape and involved straightening, widening and embanking the existing east-west waterways running along the north and south sides of the Weald Moors. Behind these newly straightened strines, new ditches were also dug, in order to make an additional drainage level that would syphon excess water off the moors more efficiently by channelling it into a new main drain feeding into the River Tern downstream of Longdon Mill. Meanwhile, the flows of several smaller watercourses were reversed and a complex series of smaller, north-south running drains were constructed to compliment the process. The programme of rural renewal did not end there and, in order for the work to be carried out, new roads were constructed linking the whole of the moorlands for the first time, including ‘Sidney Drove’ (now The Duke’s Drive) and Kynnersley Drive. Large, linear strips of woodland were planted in the west of the moors to shield newly created pasture from the elements and several farmhouses were rebuilt, including Tibberton Grange and The Buttery, providing several new landmarks in the rapidly changing landscape of the area.