Foundation stone for sluice

Recovered during demolition of properties on the site of Habitat, Paul Street, Exeter, 1982, slab of Portland stone with the inscription 'THIS SLVCE AND GROVND WORKE WAS MADE 1682 ISSAC MAWDIT MAIOR IOHN CARWITHEN RECEAVER'.

The sluice and ground work described on this stone appear to be otherwise unrecorded. They were presumably at the Exeter end of the canal. The improvements made to the Exeter Canal and Quay in 1676 included the provision of a new sluice, later called Trenchard's Sluice, at the entrance to the canal at Exeter. The surviving documents of 1681-2 do not mention a new sluice, but it was perhaps as part of these improvements that the work described in this foundation stone was undertaken.

Acknowledgments: Exeter Archaeology