Bratton Fleming:Haxton DCNN 8833 – Another new, but not so good, rural station in Devon.

51.116709 -3.941435 Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 4 Temperature records from 28/02/2023

Haxton is a small collection of farms and homes outside the North Devon village of Bratton Fleming approsximately 6 miles north east of Barnstaple and 7 miles from the coast at Coombe Martin to the north. The weather station is a newly installed and manually observed addition to the “Volunteer Climate Network” and was not a formely functioning amateur site that was adopted by the Met Office. This site assessment should be read in comparison to my Lapford review and will lead on to my next discussion topic regarding the ever increasing number of weather stations in Devon.

A brief glimpse at the headline image may not suggest any obvious problems with this site that bears an outward similarity to Lapford. Again I have not been able to get any direct ground level imagery of the screen and will be using other online tools. However, there are three issues of concern regarding its exposure – the adjacent hedge, a significant slope which in conjunction may frequently affect temperature reading representation of the wider surrounding area and the potential for extraneous intermittent heat sources.

I have lost count of the number of rural sites that end up close alongside walls and hedges. I can only assume this is either for the comfort of the observer to shield them from wind or a reluctance to use up space creating an obstacle within an agricultural setting. Possibly co-location with Envirnment Agency assets was an issue here, more later. The Lapford screen was over 30 metres from any wall, hedges, tree and buildings whilst Haxton is just (only just) over 3 metres from a deep hedge. Any closer to the hedge would have rendered this site CIMO Class 5 junk.

The image below is from 23rd June 2022 and predates the screen instalation. The square compound in this earlier image is an Environment Agency ground water monitoring site not the screen enclosure. The shade angle suggests taken early morning as the hedge runs almost due north/south with the shadow running westwards. From this AI estimated a hedge height of at least as high as the 1.25 metres to the screen base and probably a lot higher.

Winds from south southwest to north northwest will be significantly blocked by the hedge leading to potential for enhanced Aitken Effect in strong sunshine and over recording of temperatures. This could (and should) have been avoided simply by following the principle so well set at Lapford of locating the screen in the available clear area of the field.

The slope at Haxton is a much more severe problem. Whilst the measured 1 in 25 at Lapford represents something that tour cyclists term a “false flat”, here the issue is materially a problem. The Met Office quotes an elevation of 200 metres amsl for the site which is borne out by the Ordnance survey sheet belowshowing the 200 metre thicker contour line. What is also evident are the 210 metre and 190 metre contours either side of the kite marked screen location. This accounts for a 20 metres descent from east down to west over a measured 100 metres i.e. a considerable and steepening slope leading down to the nearby watercourse at 150 metres.

This is where the hedge can further exascerbate problems. On cold still evenings, colder air can drain down the hillside and be trapped by the hedge artificially creating a frost pocket and recording lower than the natural hillside environment.

A measure of the slope can be gauged from this Youtube clip I came across of a moto-cross scrambler riding from close to the screen up the Haxton Downs trackway. The slopes are clearly significant in this area. {personal note: I very much doubt the locals are overly keen on this sort of activity – I certainly would not be in my rural valley.}

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovYcVXPvPR0

Thirdly there is the question of both regularly changing ground cover and proximity of motorised vehicles. Whilst Lapford was consistent pasture, the Haxton site is regularly cropped. I find it difficult to consistently assess how ground cover changes affect readings but it does seem quite straightforward that dark coloured ploughed earth will have different characteristics to lush green grass and so on.

Quite how the above problem can ever realistically be accounted for is difficult to say, however, mechanisation is much more of an immediate issue. “Contour ploughing” and general motorised crop management equipment will frequently mean engines passing in close proximity to the screen with exhausts possibly affecting modern fast responding PRTs. Bear in mind that even a very brief heat burst can affect the day’s crude meteorological averages. Conventional agricultural vehicle use may only have a very occasional effect, however, this site is at gated junctions to two other fields and there is a lot of evidence of frequent use from trackmarks and ground wear. The EA site may have more frequent visits as well vehicular visits to the weather station itself and the gates will cause stationary vehicles with engines running whilst both opening and closing them. It is worth noting that this transient heat effect issue has only become such a significant issue since the advent of electronic thermometers – slow responding LIGTs would likely not have been so affected in the past.

Perhaps the most damning statement, though, comes from the Met Office themselves in their latest website variant. Easy to see which category Haxton falls into – it is an undesirable site and yet only installed as such in the last 3 years…….why?

“Ideal and undesirable sites

Ideal weather station sites feature level ground with no nearby trees, buildings, or steep terrain. Undesirable locations include areas affected by building warmth, tree sheltering, frost hollows, or hilltops, as these can distort temperature, wind, and sunshine measurements.”

I conclude from all this that Haxton is definitely a Class 4 (borderline Class 5 ) site in direct contrast to the high calibre Lapford site that I feel is wrongly marked down to Class 4 and is more appropriately Class 2. This demonstrates that not all rural sites are equal by a very long way and that it is not just urbanised sites that are problematical.

These two recent posts account for the last two Devon sites and indeed I think I have covered every current operating site in England and Wales. The remaining ones to review are in Scotland, Northern Ireland and for final completion I will review those in the Channel Isles. This leaves about another 12 to cover but no doubt the Met office will reveal some new or reopened sites before
I have them all completed – and I may have missed some!

This leads on to my next post reviewing the highly unusual change in the profile of recording stations in the county of Devon and how stikingly different it is to many other parts of the UK.

Source: https://talkshop.blog/2026/10/19/bratton-fleminghaxton-dcnn-8833-another-new-but-not-so-good-rural-station-in-devon/