The 4^th  Duke of Portland (1809-1854) was a man of considerable ability. A leading farmer, he retained and supervised a large proportion of his vast estate. He gained a lot of popularity for the construction of the first sewage works in England at Clipstone Park Farm. The 1,487 acre Farm was only bringing in £346 per year. The Duke wished to increase the number of sheep on the estate but a shortage of winter feed proved a problem. The solution was water meadows. After smaller trails at Clumber, Thoresby and Welbeck, he began the conversion of the waste lands at Clipstone into the famous flood-dyke system. Accounts on the ‘water-meadows at Clipstone’ are to be found in the first journal of the Royal Agricultural Society.

Work was found for hundreds of unemployed soldiers, along with navvies. The irrigated meadows extended from Carr Bank Wood in Mansfield to the boundary between Edwinstowe and Ollerton. The dykes were 7¹/₂ miles long  and watered 300 acres. Kings Mill reservoir was constructed to supply water in the summer, and to increase fertility, the Duke arranged for Mansfield’s sewage to be discharged in the Flood Dyke. Built between 1819 and 1837 the total cost was just under £40,000. It was estimated that the Duke made £3600 a year from the scheme, close to a 10% return.

During the 1930s mining subsidence altered the levels in the dykes and electric pumps had to be introduced to keep the system functioning. The system finally closed in the 1960s when further subsidence rendered them unusable.