I spent a lot of time around here as a boy living just up the road and often witnessed the wooden wier being removed to prevent such an occurance from happening. I wonder why that practice has ceased?
Does anyone know when this was built? I was wondering if this and the larger boating pond were constructed at the same time, or whether one came before the other. They've been there for as long as I can remember. Whenever the larger one was drained, as kids, we'd put on our wellies and trample around in the mud. Simple pleasures!
The Round Pool was put there when the lower Estate was built, I remember it was a part of an early 'flood control'. Much used by youngsters with toy boats, had steps to allow for differing depths of water; this was the time when people had common sense and did not rely on HSE/HandS. The river, though re-routed when the Pitch was constructed is ancient and had mill leats, as well as a traditional pool to fill water carts and water the mules. The Boating Pool we see now was placed by the wonderful philanthropists The Rotary in 1955.
By the way, how Fate takes a turn. The reason why the Boating Pool has to be drained is because of the growth of (allegedly) Japanese Pond Weed, anyone know the proper name of this aquarium plant? that was dumped in the river by some (allegedly) unthinking person; I gather that it attracts swans, either as a food or as a habitat for their food of small aqautics .. I would like to know the truth behind that not being a devout ornithologist (twitcher).
Thanks for the info, treeve. Something else we would do here as kids was make little 'boats' from bamboo leaves - curl the leaf over and put the stem through the leaf so it formed either a sail or a bow, depending how you saw it. Then race them down the river!
A nice set of pictures denamor,brings back lots of fond memories. I was in York yesterday where the river Ouse was 14 ft above normal and the floods made the surrounding area look like a inland sea? so much for global warming.
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