Pow Water

NO02SW 95 0065 2374 and 0083 2317 to 0000 2311

See also NN92SW 109 and NN92SE 73. For East Pow (NO 0085 2361 to 0499 2457) see NO02SW 96.

Pow Water [NAT] (at NO 004 234)

OS 1:10,000 map, 1987.

'(The parish of Methven) slopes from N to S, where it terminates in a narrow plain, the west part of which is a morass, which supplies with peat the neighbouring inhabitants, and from whence two streams take their rise; the most considerable of which runs westward into the Earn, and the other eastward into the Almond: Both have the name of the Pow'.

NSA 1845.

(Parish of Methven). 'Pow Water. A large stream which lies in the parish of Methven, and after a circuitous course of several miles falls into the River Earn, its channel is generally an artificial rill.'

Name Book, 1866.

The current edition of the OS 1:10,000 map (1987) depicts the angular course of what is evidently an artificial drainage channel formed from the Pow Water flowing towards the W and SW from Methven Moss (which is centred at NO 011 236) as far as Dollerie Bridge (NN 9071 2092) where the course of the channel becomes less regular and the work of improvement appears to have ceased. The Pow Water flows into the River Earn at Innerpeffray (NN 8975 1858) and is known locally as The Pow.

The ditch noted as Sweeps Stank (NN 9550 2273 to 9447 2261) has apparently formed a major tributary, while, along the greater part of its course, the Pow is joined at frequent intervals (and roughly at right-angles) by shorter tributary streams and ditches which form the basis of the layout of the present network of fields. The landscape is flat and the soils generally peaty.

It appears probable that this ditch, together with the East Pow (NO02SW 96 and NO02SE 154) has formed the basis for a major drainage scheme intended to bring under cultivation the extensive flat ground of lower Strathearn These works may be tentatively attributed to the period of agricultural improvement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and some at least of the large farmsteadings that border the flat ground may also be attributed to the same scheme.

The artificial channel of the Pow Water appears to run across this map sheet from its origins (at NO 0065 2374 and 0083 2317) on the W side of Methven Moss to Balgowan (NO 0000 2311). It forms the boundary between the parishes of Tibbermore and Findo Gask (to the S) and Methven (to the N).

Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 3 May 1996.