Local farmer and member of the History RATS, David Waters, whose family have lived on the Levels since the 1600s, shares his memories of living and working alongside Monk’s Ditch.
Stone entrance bridge to The Grange, 1950s (D Waters)
Monks Ditch, or as it is locally known, ‘The Pill,’ meanders through the entire length of The Grange, my farm in the village of Whitson on the Gwent Levels. My ancestors, the Keene family, lived here in the mid-seventeenth-century. In 1907, my widowed grandmother, Anne Waters, moved to The Grange with her five sons and a daughter. I was born just a few months after the outbreak of the Second World War. The winter of 1939 was so harsh that my father (Ernest Waters) told me the trees were covered in icicles which ‘clinked’ in the wind. And so, my life’s journey began, living and working alongside this freshwater stream that forms the boundary between the villages of Whitson and Goldcliff.
After the Benedictine monks built their priory at Goldcliff Hill in the twelfth century, they needed to drain the land in order to grow crops. A stream flowing down from the hills of Wentwood offered a solution, so the Pill was engineered along that freshwater stream, being 100% above ground at Llanwern, 50% above and 50% below ground at Whitson, and 100% below ground level in Goldcliff. This created a fall for the fast-flowing water out through the gout (sluice), eventually reaching the Pill mouth and the Severn Sea. This enabled drainage of the adjacent land, and it also provided fresh water for drinking, or the making of ale.
The monks built barns to store the crops of their now cultivated land: (Morburne) now Moorbarn, on Broadstreet Common, Nash, and (The Grainge Barn) The Grange in Whitson, where my farm is today. They must have built a bridge across the Pill to access it.
Steps used to collect water (D Waters)
One of my earliest memories was of the Greenhalgh Family walking over from Lodge Farm, which was situated opposite my entrance bridge. Alongside the bridge was a set of five stone steps with a small platform at the bottom. This had been used for centuries by local people to collect drinking water, as it was the only fresh running water in the village. Along Whitson Common there are several of these sets of steps to enable access for the filling of water buckets. Our family enjoyed the luxury of a well which was fed by the Pill. This was situated in our back kitchen (now my garage), along with an old-fashioned water pump and large china sink in which to collect the water, a large open range and a bread oven. Squire Phillips of Whitson Court had put a well, also fed by the Pill, into the Court and into Whitson Lodge. There were noggles (a local word meaning a tap valve) along the Pill to feed these wells.
The Greenhalghs collected water each day for their needs. I cannot be sure if this was boiled for drinking, but I suspect so. When I was about 6 or 7 one of the daughters died quite suddenly, possibly from typhoid fever or diphtheria: some thought the water may have been contaminated, but this was never proved. By this time my father had had a mains water supply put to our farm buildings and house which was much safer.
Monks Ditch in full flow (D Waters)
My brothers and I were brought up to understand the dangers that water held. Father taught me how to fish, and the Pill was my ‘lake’. My home-made fishing rod consisted of a bean stick, string, a nut for a sink, a bent pin for a hook, and a bottle cork for a float. He showed me how to construct this rod, and I was able to catch Eels, especially during wet weather, when the water was fast flowing and brown or red in colour. I once caught a flatfish as big as a tea plate with a hay pike. I used to see shoals of Roach, Trout, Flatfish, and even the odd Goldfish. It wasn’t unusual to see people having a picnic on the banks of the Pill in our fields, as they would come to spend the day fishing, especially during the School Holidays. Groups of boys on bikes would cycle to the area for a day out, the Commons where the Pill ran through, was often a place to put up a tent, and then to swim in the wide channel. It was of course in the days when children made their own fun, and were allowed the freedom to do so.
Row, row, row your boat… (D Waters)
The Pill was also good for sailing on: I was not the first to make an improvised sailing craft. My raft was constructed with six 5-gallon oil drums, bound together to keep it afloat, topped with an old door as the deck, and I used a strong stick as my paddle. I can remember inviting my neighbour from Whitson Court, Mary Maybury, who was the same age as myself, to come for a ride. It was all going well as we stood astride the raft, and gently floated down stream towards our bridge, when I suddenly realised we needed to get lower. I shouted ‘duck’ to Mary, who instead put her hands up on the bridge to stop the raft which only meant one thing, complete disaster, as we both fell off the raft into the water. Funnily enough I could never tempt her back onto it again!
As I got older, I noticed how the Pill became entwined in my farming life. In the days when sheared wool fleeces were worth selling, clean wool could be sold for a premium. My father, brothers and John Stevens, who helped on the farm, decided to wash the sheep in the Pill before shearing them. It was simple to usher them in, but with such a steep sided watercourse, ewes would be twice as heavy to pull out. I do not remember this activity ever being repeated.
During the 1950s I attended Gwent College in Newport. My route to school began by cycling to Llanwern Station. From home, I followed the Monks Ditch Pill over the hump back bridge on to Black Wall Road, where the Pill was edged with withy trees planted only a few feet apart. They were pollarded every few years which enabled the bank to remain secure, sadly a practice which no longer exists. I continued past Ty-Pridd on my left and New House Farm on my right, then three-quarters of a mile with nothing but the open land of Decoy-pool on my left and Monks Ditch on my right. On arriving at Llanwern Station, I left my bicycle on a pathway over Monks Ditch Pill which led to the platform footbridge. During the five years I made this journey nothing ever went missing, even though it was left unlocked with a saddle bag full of wet-weather gear and a pump: perhaps this is a testimony to the way things were. Sadly, we lost this route when the Steelworks took over the northern half of Whitson.
Mowing alongside the Pill, 1975 (D Waters)
In my young days, the River Board was responsible for the maintenance of the Pill, and their team of men including Mr Bill England of Nash and Mr Alf Stevens of Porton, plus others, would scour it twice a year with their assorted hand tools, starting in Llanwern and gradually working down to the gout in Goldcliff. I considered this to be no mean feat. Later, when the drashing of the banks with long handled hooks ceased, a decision was made to spray the banks and weeds with a chemical. After a while, it was noticed this was having a detrimental effect on the bugs, beetles and invertebrates. Therefore today, the banks are cut with tractors, bushwackers and hedge trimmers. These are followed by a JCB weeding the bed of the Pill with a large cradle attached and a cutter bar to de-weed, whereas I remember the days when draglines were used for the purpose of de-silting. Landowners are now asked to refrain from cutting the banks or hedges between 1 March and 1 September to enable plants to seed, and protect nesting birds until fledged.
Wainbridge, built adjacent to Monks Ditch, 1957 (D Waters)
During 1957, my father built a house called Wainbridge. This was adjacent to the Pill at the northern end of the farm in the Football Field which had been used as a football ground for the Moorland United Football Team during the late 1940s/early 1950s. (The changing rooms had been the garage of George Fisk of Whitson Lodge.)
At this time, plans were being made for the building of Llanwern Steelworks. A proposal was put forward to widen the Pill to a 60-foot canal to accommodate the Steelworks run-off water! My father received a letter from the River Board, stating that he would be responsible for the cost of building a new 60-foot bridge over the proposed canal. Fortunately, the National Farmers Union took up the matter, and eventually the plan was quashed. Can you imagine a 60-foot-wide Pill?
Over fifty-five years ago, a temporary telephone line arrangement was installed to my farm. The cable goes across the Common to the right of my entrance along the bed of the Pill, underneath my farm's bridge then up and over the Pill's bank into Wainbridge Reen. It continues under the road and connects back into the telephone line on the opposite side of the Whitson Road. As you might imagine, contractors weeding, excavating or bushwacking the Pill's banks often manage to shred or snap the main Whitson cable putting all the local lines out of order!
The Pill can be dangerous to traffic should you be unfortunate enough to veer off the highway, and there have been many accidents. One I vividly remember was during the construction of the Steelworks. Hundreds of lorries used our roads and lanes to transport the shale for the foundations of the Steelworks until others were built or widened. On one occasion a lorry reversed into the Pill along the road near Ty-pridd, with the trailer part down vertically in the Pill and the engine and cab protruding up in the air akin to a missile ready for launching. The locals all gathered to observe this rather unusual happening.
During the snowfall of 1947, I made an igloo out of a large snowdrift. In 1963, the snow and ice lay thick on the ground for about 10 weeks before the eventual ‘great thaw’. As the snow and ice built up and the temperature dropped and stayed well below zero for some while, the ice on the Pill became thicker. Our mains water supply pipe entered the farm from the road, under the bridge, and over the Pill which naturally froze solid very quickly. It was then we had to smash through 10 inches of ice, and bucket the water into churns to make it simpler to convey to the livestock. At the time I had a milking herd of 26, all of them needed 20 gallons of water each per day, plus 50 head of cattle, several pigs and heavily in-lamb ewes all needing water. The reens were also frozen over, so the Pill had to provide for the entire head of livestock. After one month, Bill Baker of Clifton Court, Goldcliff was, at my request able to thaw the water pipe with his electric welder. After the cattle had had their water, I collected churns of water from my brother's farm (who still had his mains supply working) to take to the house and fill up the header tank in the attic. Afterwards, we made sure the mains water pipe was buried three feet under the base of the Pill, to prevent such an occurrence happening again.
Of course, if the hills of Wentwood experienced a high rainfall, the Pill flowed higher, faster and darker in colour, and often ran over its banks. In late July 1969, we saw the Pill doing just that. This was a difficult time for all farmers, as rather than making hay, the fields lay sodden. Our crops were nothing short of rubbish. Some of the local houses were only inches from flooding.
From snow and rain to drought. The Summer of 1976 was one of the driest on record. We had no rain between Good Friday, 18 April, and September. I have a noggle by my entrance bridge alongside the Pill which supplies water to my farm and all the land between Monks Ditch and Chapel Road and beyond. Any surplus then runs into Chapel Reen. In my younger days there were sluice boards in Gregorys field to hold the water higher, in and around Grange Farm, but this, of course, no longer applies. So, during that dry period when the water levels became so low, water was pumped from the Severn Tunnel and other places into the Pill to keep the supplies available for the animals to drink, and fill the ditches. We call these ditches wet fences, and they were our main means of keeping livestock in the fields.
It was not long before it became apparent the water temperature must have risen, and as a consequence killed a great many of the fish, as they were visible floating on top of the water. That year our income plummeted, but as usual we depended on the Pill as water became rationed all across the country.
Yet another incident connected with life along the Pill was one summer night after midnight, leaping out of bed to listen to a message being relayed via a loud speaker. Apparently, cyanide had leaked from the lagoons at Llanwern Steelworks, and not being sure of its eventual destination, which at first they believed would be Monks Ditch, the police took charge and alerted us to the situation. They advised us to move our livestock away from the Pill. This was pretty futile, since the Pill fed every field on the farm. Early next morning, all the local dairy farmers gathered on our drive as it meant that all the milk produced could be contaminated, or at worst the cattle could die, so sample after sample was analysed. Thankfully, the following day the cattle were still alive, the problem abated, and life carried on as normal.
Cattle grazing alongside the Pill (D Waters)
Keeping livestock alongside the Pill inevitably presented challenges. It wasn’t unusual for an animal to lean over a little too far to drink and lose its balance. The water seemed almost bottomless, and we frequently had to assist them out by mechanical means. I am sure there are many more instances the Pill has played a role in my farming life, but there are also memories I have had the good fortune to observe in my 80 years, of the wildlife along its banks. From my days as a child when I sat alongside the old stone bridge with my fishing gear, I took notice of the water bugs, the damselflies and the brightly coloured dragonflies. There were holes along the bank where the water voles made their nests. It was after the Steelworks came to the area, and there was pollution all around us, coupled with high fertiliser and spray usage, that I noticed the gradual decline in all of these species. The swans and wild ducks became fewer in number. Then in the late 1970s we had an influx of wild mink which instantly wiped out the ducks and the colonies of moorhens: they would attack and kill anything that moved. It was a great day when they were eradicated from the area.
With the closure of the Steelworks, the change from intensive farming methods, and the encouragement of the Sites of Special Scientific Interest scheme funded by the Welsh Government, I have seen the return of nearly all these beautiful creatures and with other additions. I see once again the Herons fishing alongside the Egrets, such graceful birds screeching as they swoop up and away when they are disturbed. There are Kingfishers that flash past or I can observe them sitting and waiting to dive in the water for their prey.
One of the most beautiful sights was a Cob and Pen with their six cygnets. They were teaching their cygnets to fly, firstly on the water, then along the Pill bank. They flew the whole length of the orchard flapping frantically in the early morning mist as they tried to take off. I have been fortunate to stand and watch this wonderful sight on many occasions. The wild ducks make their nests in the clumps of reeds near the banks, so it is not unusual to see a family of ducks paddling along and very alert to the dangers around them, there is a skill to being quiet as you approach the waterway. What is also wonderful is the return of the Otters. On several occasions when walking along the bank, I have seen a head disappear quickly into the water followed by the ripples they leave as they make their getaway.
There has been fun as well as hardships during my 80 years living alongside this waterway some 800 years after it was constructed. However, I sincerely hope long after my days, the Levels that I have known and loved, will continue to be preserved for all future generations.
David Waters
Kingfisher (D Waters)
