Rowland Vaughan

Rowland Vaughan (1559–1629) was an English Manoral Lord who is credited with the introduction of a new irrigation system that greatly improved the grass and hay production of meadows through a system of periodic "drownings". This method so improved grass production that lands formerly needed to provide livestock with food during the winter could be given over to grazing or cereal production. It was one of the many new methods introduced during the British Agricultural Revolution that increased crop yields and allowed for the development of large cities.

Rowland Vaughan was the second son of Watkyn Vaughan of Bredwardine, Herefordshire. The Vaughan family was closely entwined with another local family, the Parrys, with numerous inter-marriages. It was through the contact of his great-aunt, Blanche Parry, that Rowland came to spend some time in the court of Queen Elizabeth I of England, Blanche being one of the queen's longest-serving women. However Rowland complained of the 'bitternesse' of Blanche's 'humor'.

Rowland left court to join the military, leaving for the Nine Years' War in Ireland. Here the combination of bad food and wet weather invalided him from the Army, and he returned to Bredwardine. He recovered in six months and was planning to take to the field again, but met a 'country-gentlewoman' (another Parry) who had inherited a local manor, Newcourt, and married her. Rowland also inherited an adjoining estate, Whitehouse in Turnastone. The combined estates stretched along the Golden Valley, on the west bank of the River Dore, from Peterchurch to Bacton.

After two years, "I began to expostulate with myself what was best to be done to preserve my reputation with my martiall companions, and with-all to give contentment to my vertuous and loving wife". His wife asked that he take to walking the estates, especially to check up on the miller who ran the water mill on her land. Millers were long considered the least honest workmen, and Rowland was less than impressed with the duty, complaining it "therefore requires the more paines to be taken in watching their water, & looking to their fingers." Nevertheless he took her advice, "lest shee should have held me careless of her good, and so ill deserve her love."

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