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Thanks to Alan Jolly for collating the data about all the washfolds surveyed. This allows us to look at patterns shown by the collection of individual sites. These charts refer only to the folds in the valley – WF1 – WF45.
Chambers
Condition and certainty
Location
Altitude
Wash dub
There are between one and eight chambers in our sites. given that it appears that washfolds were linked to individual farms and that flocks were much smaller in the past, it is not surprising that most folds hade either a single or just two chambers. The most complex set of folds was above Birks Farm at the edge of Harter Forest. This showed many signs of additions and alterations and was the only site surveyed that had a concrete dipping tank indicating more modern usage with chemical dipping which came in after 1900.
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On the whole, most of the folds had survived quite well which is an impressive staement about the skill of the wall builders, some several hundred years ago. Some neartest to the beck, showed likely damage from flooding, either in the past or the more recent major events where even a major road bridge was carried away by the flow. We weere certain that 80% of our sites had been washfolds either from labelling on the first series of Ornance Survey maps or from obvious features of their constuction and placement. Some had been recorded as washfolds but we felt it unlikely to have been case the case as access from the fold into the water was so difficult.
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The numbers of washfolds was quite evenly divided into three main groups. Some were out on the open fellside, often remote from any obvious sign of other farming activity, even from tracks. The second group were associated with head wall the separates the inbye land from the open fell. Some of this set were built against the outer wall with access through to the inbye fields. Others hada way though the wall into chambers on the field side. Using the fell wall as a gathering or guding wall obviously makes a lot of sense. The final group were into the land nearer the farms themselves. Only three sites were within a hundred metres of a tarmac road. In each case, this was a fell road rather one down in the valley.
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Location of the folds by altitude:
The chart shows that most of the folds were placed withing the same contours on either side of the valley. Only five were lower than 200m (660 feet) and six were at 350m (1140feet) or above. In some case, the farms were in the valley bottom with a climb up into the close below the fell wall, see above. Other farms were already higher up the valley side and their folds tended to be the higher ones.
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There was a clear mix of sites with wonderful natural pools where the location for building the fold was easily decided. Others sites showed signs of dam and earth bank building to create a larger pool when it was needed. A few sites had a narrowing ot the beck, either natural or man made such as a wall with a water gate, where a dam needed nothing more than an old door to block the flow. Others showed the remains of dam building often long broken down by the passing of water over the years. Earth and stone revetments indicated the limits of the pool and in one case, WF36 on Red Moss Beck, the coloured first edition shows the full extent of the pool. Thre sites used the River Duddon itself. WF2 was at Cockley Beck at the top of the valley. WF42 was marked as a sheepwash just south of the farm at Sella. Local children recall the pool below Duddon Bridge as Sheepwash pool when they went swimming there, but it has not been labelled as such on the old maps.
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