I am fascinated by the lost ponds, water
courses and wells which lie hidden and forgotten across south Manchester.
Chorlton Clough, circa 1900 |
And ever since I wrote the book on ruralChorlton-cum-Hardy, I look for evidence for these bits of our ancient past.*
Like the vanished village green in
Withington and its much shrunken “friends” in Didsbury and Chorlton, water
courses are a clue to how we lived.
These ponds wells and water course courses
were all there was before the provision of mains water in the 19th
century.
Look at any old map of south Manchester, and
the evidence is there in abundance. The
land which was to become Southern Century was a studied with small streams, so
much so that when they began work on the cemetery, they struck water just a few
feet down across the area.
The Isles; 1854 |
Much the same is true of Chorlton, where
water courses like the Rough Leech Gutter, and Blomely’s Fishpond were once
important features.
The Rough Leech
Gutter ran from Sandy Lane across the Township before heading out to Turn Moss,
while Blomely’s Fishpond supplied water and building materials for the inhabitants
of Chorlton Row which is now Beech Road.
Quiet ponds fed by lazy streams, the Meadows, 2018 |
All of which leads me to a fascinating
programme on Radio 4 today, from On Your Farm, which explores the often
neglected farm ponds which “are a vital wildlife habitat in the working
countryside but tens of thousands have been lost in the drive for greater
efficiency. Anna Hill joins farmer Nick Anema and the team from the Norfolk
Ponds Project as they help bring 'ghost ponds' back to life”.**
And it really has the lost, from ghost
ponds, to restored ones, with a sideways look at the importance of ponds to wildlife
and to our own rural history.
So …. one to listen to, and ponder on what
it might tell us about where we live.
Location, everywhere
Pictures; Chorlton Clough, circa 1900, from
the Lloyd Collection, and detail from the 1854 OS map of Lancashire courtesy of
Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/
*The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2011/11/the-story-of-chorlton-cum-hardy.html
** Pond Life,
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fnjw
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