The impact of watermills on the landscape of the River Great Ouse valley between Brampton and Hemingford Grey, 1086–1350: the identification and analysis of the extensive adaptation and construction of river channels that were engineered to power a series of valuable watermills

This study identifies how the growth and development of a series of watermills — recorded as the most valuable in England in the Domesday Survey — significantly changed the landscape of a stretch of the River Great Ouse valley in the three centuries between the Norman Conquest (1066) and the Black Death (c 1350). By utilising remote sensing (LiDAR), cartographic analysis and fieldwork, combined with analysis of documentary (especially contemporary litigation) and literary sources, we demonstrate that landscape features that, hitherto, have either been ignored or attributed to natural processes are, in fact, the result of milling activity. The study’s findings describe and explain the national pre-eminence of water milling in Huntingdonshire in the eleventh century and show how activity expanded in the post-Conquest period. The examination helps rationalise other features of the historical landscape, such as parish boundaries. The case study presented here has broader implications for the understanding of the development of multi-channel river forms, to which end we conclude by advocating a mapping methodology that designates landscape features resulting from water milling as heritage assets.