Drake's Leat
aqueduct in Devon, England
Drake's Leat, also known as Plymouth Leat, was a watercourse constructed in the late 16th century to tap the River Meavy on Dartmoor, England, from which it ran 17.5 miles (28.2 km) in order to supply Plymouth with water. It began at a point now under water at Burrator Reservoir, from which its path now emerges some 10m lower than the typical reservoir water level. It was one of the first municipal water supplies in the country.
Plans
The leat was first mooted in 1560 and then Mr Forsland of Bovey was paid 16s 10d (89p) to prepare a feasibility study. Due to the necessity of following the contours the length of the leat was seventeen and a half miles.
In 1576, Walter Peperell became Mayor of Plymouth and it was at this time that the idea for the leat was resurrected by the Corporation of Plymouth. It was then that Robert Lampen of St Budeaux was paid 52s 5d (£2.62) to undertake a survey and the route of the leat was confirmed.
When Elizabeth I called a parliament in 1584, the Water Bill for Plymouth was already prepared for presentation. The bill had the following clauses:
To provide a supply of water for naval and merchant shipping.
To provide water for fire fighting in Plymouth.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Drake's Leat” as aqueduct in Devon, England. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5305574. Authority coordinates are 50.368, -4.132. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1560, 1576 and 1584.
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This entry incorporates text from “Drake's Leat” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.