Ghost ponds on the wireless …….with a nod to our history

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 19^th 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

And even more striking were the mix of small ponds and meandering  little lazy streams which crisscrossed the land from Oswald Road out towards Longford Park and which were known as the Isles.

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