Ditches

A complex network of ditches runs through the village of Steventon; the digging of which must have been a very major undertaking at the time of their construction.

They are mostly fed from a sluice on the Ginge above the mill and split into two main routes through the village: the allotment ditch and the Causeway ditch. These will have helped with the drainage of the area and gave a source of moving water to neighbouring houses.

While researching his book about the Ginge local historian, Frank Poller, met customers at the North Star who remembered getting water for their whisky from the ditch outside the pub… unless the ducks had stirred it up too much. During the 19th century there were many entries in the Causewaymen’s Account Book relating to the maintenance of the ditches – ranging from a shilling paid to John Gerring in 1809 for ‘vole catching’ to 1868 when J Gerring received £1 for ‘cleaning arches and attending to upper sluice’. Workers were not always paid in cash – a 1868 entry shows 9 shillings 8 pence paid to Richard Fletcher ‘for beer the men had whilst ditching’.

And, of course, no one can claim to be a proper villager until they’ve fallen into a ditch!

The ditch flowing past houses on the north side of the Big Green.