The Pow dates back to the Middle Ages and was dug on the orders of the canons of the nearby Inchaffray Abbey; it was expanded under permissions granted by Robert the Bruce.

Abbot Maurice of Inchaffray was chaplain to Robert the Bruce and prior to the 1314 Battle of Bannockburn claimed to have witnessed a miracle whereby the arm bone of Saint Fillan appeared in a previously empty reliquary.

[3] The commission was empowered by the act to tax heritors, those landowners that benefited from the Pow, for the maintenance and improvement of the ditch.

[4] It is responsible for some of the country's most fertile agricultural land and has also worked to allow residential development to take place on part of the drainage basin.

[4] The Pow has a population of non-native beavers and the commissioners have been in discussion with Scottish Natural Heritage to carry out a trial of beaver-proof fencing and water-gates.