Winkworth Arboretum, Busbridge

Watching brief by C Currie of CKCA during the breaching of the dam of Phillimore Lake found evidence for what is thought to have been the rare survival of a timber revetment facing the medieval mill dam. The timbers were sampled for dendrochronological dating. In the 1880s the Phillimore Lake dam had been rebuilt and enlarged to create a much larger lake, and the rebuilt dam was about 1.8m higher than the original and had a thin clay core. A few years later, in 1896, a second lake was created at Rowe’s Flash, and draining of this revealed a similar dam with a thin clay core. Leaks in both dams that had led to the works were thought to be the result of the poor standard of construction.