Holderness Drain is the main feature of a land drainage scheme for the area of Holderness to the east of the River Hull in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. Construction began in 1764, and several notable civil engineers were involved with the scheme over the years. Despite the high costs of the initial scheme, it was not particularly successful, because of the refusal of the ship owners of Hull to allow an outlet at Marfleet. They insisted that the water be discharged into the River Hull to keep the channel free of silt. Following a period of agricultural depression and the building of new docks in the early 1800s, an outlet at Marfleet was finally authorised in 1832. A high level system still fed upland water to the Hull, but the low level system discharged into the Humber, where levels were considerably lower. Following the success of steam pumping on the Beverley and Barmston Drain, the trustees looked at such a possibility for the Holderness Drain, but the development of the Alexandra Dock in the 1880s and then the King George V Dock in 1913 provided a solution, as the docks were topped up with water pumped from the drain, to lessen the ingress of silt-laden water.

Responsibility for the scheme rested with the Trustees of Holderness Drainage from its inception in 1764 until 1930, when a major overhaul of land drainage legislation took place. Since then it has been managed by a catchment board, a river board, a river authority, a water authority, the National Rivers Authority and the Environment Agency. Since 1930, the smaller drainage ditches that feed into the Holderness Drain have been the responsibility of an internal drainage board. In order to improve the efficiency of the system, pumping stations were built at Tickton, Great Culvert and East Hull in 1972. However, attitudes to land drainage have changed and the Tickton station is now deemed to be uneconomic, and will be closed down unless alternative sources of income to fund its operation can be found.

History The valley of the River Hull was regularly inundated with fresh water in the north, and salt water in the south in the early medieval period. Hamlets along the edges of the Humber and the Hull built banks to prevent the inundation by sea water in the early fourteenth century, as King Edward II appointed commissioners in 1311 and 1313, with responsibilities to inspect and repair the banks. However, the commissioners were only appointed when the walls were breached, and once repairs had been made, they were disbanded. There was no regular inspection of the banks. As well as preventing the ingress of sea water, the banks also prevented fresh water from the land reaching the Humber, and so a network of channels were cut, to channel water to the Hull and the Humber. Primitive sluices were built where the channels passed through the banks, to ensure that water only passed in one direction.

The carrs to the north remained flooded, although a number of channels were cut through them by the monks from Meaux Abbey. These ran in an east-west direction and were primarily to aid transport by boat, rather than for drainage, although their large size tended to have some effect on the land. A move towards a more comprehensive system of control occurred in 1532, with the passing of the Statute of Sewers. This created commissioners of sewers in the main areas of England and Wales which had significant areas of marshland. They had considerable powers, which were exercised through courts of sewers. Two such Courts were created in the Hull valley. One was based at Beverley, with separate juries for North, Middle and South Holderness and three other areas, while the second was based at Hull. They were initially only concerned with existing banks and drains, but in 1580 they organised the construction of a new drain to link Monkdike to Forthdike, providing a more southerly outlet for the water, where the level of the Hull was lower at low tide. An extensive survey of all the drains and banks was made between 1660 and 1662, with the details recorded in a book of pains, now held by the East Riding Record Office. Pains was the term used for records of the size of such structures, the intervals at which they had to be repaired or scoured, and the penalties for failing to carry out the repairs.

The idea of taking the waters from the carrs in the north to a new outlet near Marfleet on the Humber was suggested by Mr Snow in 1671. He was a Commissioner of Sewers, and proposed a new drain from Forthdike to Marfleet, passing to the east of Sutton, whose inhabitants had resisted previous attempts at a solution. Snow offered to cut the drain in return for use of the drained land for a period of 21 years, but he failed to obtain the consent of the landowners or an act of Parliament to authorise it. Sir Joseph Ashe made some improvements to his Wawne estate, which included cutting the Engine Drain, at the end of which he built two windmills to raise the water into the Hull. Others followed suit, and there were around a dozen drainage windmills in the area by the early 18th century.

First phase

In 1763, landowners decided that the carrs to the east of the River Hull could be turned into profitable land, and obtained an act of Parliament to exclude this area from the jurisdiction of the Court of Sewers. The act created Holderness Drainage, a legal entity with powers to construct new banks and drains. Plans for the drainage of Holderness were then put together. John Grundy, Jr. was approached to produce plans for the drainage of some of low-lying land to the east of the River Hull. He worked with John Smeaton on the initial assessment, and the two men visited the area in November. There was significant opposition to his plans for the main outlet to be at Marfleet, since the shipping owners felt that the scouring action of the fresh water on the mud banks near the lower end of the Hull was vital to maintain the Old Harbour, as this part of the river was known. With limited financial resources, Holderness Drainage were unable to resist the pressure, and the plans were altered to have an outlet at Stoneferry on the Hull, and reduced dimensions for the drains. Grundy wrote the final report, completing it on 30 December. Smeaton then reviewed it, and suggested only minor modifications, as he was happy with all the major points. The land surveyor Charles Tate produced an engraved plan, and Grundy went to London to steer the bill for the scheme through Parliament. The bill became an act of Parliament, the (4 Geo. 3. c. 47 ) on 5 April 1764.

Grundy's life was marked by tragedy shortly afterwards, when his wife of 21 years died, and remarkably personal letters between the two engineers have survived. Although busy with the Calder Navigation by then, Smeaton made the time to visit the area with Grundy on 4 July, in response to a request from the Trustees of the scheme to view the low grounds and carrs. Grundy produced a report on 14 July, and then designed the outfall sluice, which had two arches with sluices. Smeaton again reviewed the plans in September, suggesting improvements to the foundations, and this was his last involvement with the scheme. Grundy submitted his report on the sluice in December 1764, which included a detailed bill of quantities, with an estimated cost of £1,800.

It appears that Grundy had been acting as Chief Engineer since July 1764. In addition to the main drain, the scheme involved the construction of of barrier bank, on the east bank of the River Hull, to prevent inundation of the low-lying land from that source. Construction of the bank had begun in July 1764, with John Hoggard acting as superintendent of the works. In March 1765, work on the main sluice began, and bricklayers, carpenters and masons were employed. The resident engineer or 'surveyor' for this part of the work and for the construction of the main drain was Joseph Page, who was paid £80 per year. Throughout the contract, Charles Tate, who had produced the original engraved plan, worked as the land surveyor. Grundy in his capacity as Chief Engineer, visited the sites on four occasions in 1765, and continued to do so until October 1767, when the main drains and sluice were finished. Both he and Page then moved on, but work on the banks and drains continued under the supervision of Hoggard. By the time this first phase was completed in 1772, the cost had been around £24,000.

Some work continued until 1775, consisting largely of raising river banks, making drains deeper, and extending the drains that had been created. However, the system was inadequate, as there were large areas that remained under water near Leven, in the north of the area, and at Weel, to the east of Beverley. Flooding during the winter months was still a regular problem, because the drains could not cope with rain from the low-lying carrs, when they were full with water from higher ground to the north of Holderness. The engineer William Jessop spent a month investigating the problems, studying some , and presented a report in July 1786. Further survey work was then carried out by George Plummer, and formed the basis for Jessop's detailed plan, which was agreed in 1787. He produced specifications for drains, embankments, dams and tunnels, with the overriding principle that the water from the uplands to the north should be kept entirely separate from the internal drains of the area. Once the project got under way, Jessop visited from time to time to check on progress. He made a total of seven visits between 1789 and 1792, when his involvement and that of George Plummer, who had acted as resident engineer, ceased. Anthony Bower then took over as resident engineer, overseeing the work until 1795. This phase of the scheme was finally completed in 1805, at a cost of £16,000.

Second phase

Despite the large amounts of money spent on the schemes, they were not particularly effective, because of the failure to provide an outfall at Marfleet. Ship owners continued to oppose such a plan until at least 1810, and there was an agricultural depression from 1815 to 1830. During this period, the port of Hull developed, with the opening of Humber Dock in 1809 and Junction Dock (later Princes Dock) in 1829. By the time the agricultural industry began to recover, the carrs were in a bad state, but so was the Old Harbour at Hull. Holderness Drainage acted quickly, obtaining the (2 & 3 Will. 4. c. l), which authorised the construction of a drain to Marfleet, where the outlet sluice (known locally as a clow) could be built at a lower level than previous outlets, thus providing a better gradient for the flow of the water. The old Main Drain was embanked where it crossed the carrs, and was used to carry runoff from the streams of Holderness to the Hull. The new lowland drain carried water from the carrs to Marfleet, passing under the upland drain in the Great Culvert. Where possible, old drains were made straighter, wider and deeper, and the meres in the Leven and Tickton area soon disappeared. By 1854, around one sixth of the land was still subject to occasional winter flooding, but most of the carrs were by then used for crops, rather than for pasture.

Flooding in the Holderness Level increased between 1840 and 1880, as farmers used tile drains to keep their land free of standing water. These carried the water away more quickly to the main drains, increasing the peak flow. Where this drained into the upland drain, this was not a problem, but where it entered the lowland drain, it caused difficulties, particularly when Marfleet was tide locked. Following the successful introduction of steam pumping on the Beverley and Barmston drain, to the west of the River Hull, the trustees looked at the possibility of installing pumps as Marfleet. However, help came from another source.