A monastic canal to serve Bullington Priory and link it to the Barlings Eau is documented as a grant to the nuns of Bullington at the end of the 12th century, allowing the construction of a fosse or ditch two perches broad 'for the easy transit of ships' from the river 'as far as the park of the said Simon de Kyme, provided the metes or boundary lines between Apley and Newball are not obliterated or damaged'. The waterway clearly used the stream now known as the Apley Beck, which forms the parish boundary between Apley and Newball, at least as far north as Sparrow Lane and the junction with the parish boundary of Bullington (from TF09087370 to TF09727517). The bounds of Simon's park are not known, unless it extended to occupy the whole of the southern part of what is now Bullington parish. It is possible that the stream was made passable for craft all the way to the enclosure at Cocklode Wood (PRN 50280) which abuts it, and that that site's function is related to this facility. Throughout its lower course the waterway would have followed the edge of large blocks of medieval managed woodland - Newball Park Wood (now cleared) and Hardy Gang Wood - on the Newball side. Where the watercourse skirts the south-east edge of Hardy Gang Wood, the pasture field on the Apley side preserves a broad degraded bank flanking the stream and mirroring the surviving boundary bank of the former medieval managed woodland on the Newball side. {1}