A Stew Pond

Whilst going for walks round the pond, you may have easily missed the stew ponds! These are small ponds that were historically used to hold fish caught at Fleet Pond prior to being transported to the monks at Winchester.

For a good history of the Pond, please see here and a previous post explains how these holding ponds were renewed by conservation volunteers in 2006 as well as more on their interesting history.

The stew ponds can be found by following the crossing point near Brookly Bridge (see photos below). The path is straightforward and the walk will only take 5 minutes, so it’s worth giving it a try!

The bridge over Brookly Stream

The crossing point (near the bridge above) that leads to the Stew Ponds

Michelle Salter writes:

This year we’re planning to run a series of posts highlighting some of the much loved and well used areas around the pond – the hotspots – such at Sandy Bay and the Picnic Area.

We’ll also feature some hidden gems,  including The Stew Ponds.

In 1491, the Prior at Winchester leased Fleet Pond and its pastures to a tenant at Fleet Farm for an annual rent of 23 shillings and 4 pence, plus “a hundred of the fishes, pike, tenches, perches, bream and roaches, to be delivered to Winchester in a good and fresh state”.

The stewing, or holding ponds, are thought to date back to this time and can be reached by following the colour coded posts on the blue walk, which detours away from the pond to circle Brookly Wood. The series of four, possibly five, small interlinking ponds are located in a glade alongside a footpath running off the Brookly Stream. It’s thought these ponds were built in order to store fish taken from the main pond and would have been used by the monks of St Swithins, and then by their tenants. Fresh fish could be taken from the stew ponds and housed in barrels, ready to be transported by cart to the Priory at Winchester.

The regular conservation volunteers undertook the task of uncovering the ponds on their work parties in September and October 2006. Initially, we looked in vain for any water as the ponds blended into the woodland floor, covered by layers of leaves and plant debris. Our first task was to clear the holly and bramble from the surrounding area and fell some of the smaller trees, allowing more light to fall on the ponds. Tackling the larger pond was back-breaking work as years of accumulated muck and plant debris had to be shovelled upwards and over the bank into buckets and wheelbarrows. The deeper we dug the smellier it got as the waft of sulphur rose up from the murky depths.

The three smaller ponds were much shallower than the larger one, and we were able to use large, wide-toothed rakes to haul the debris from these. I remember we were all secretly hoping to uncover a rare medieval artifact, but all we found were an assortment of mobile phones, a video recorder plus videos, and a variety of clothing. Sadly nothing of any historical interest was unearthed, but it was satisfying to see the ponds restored, not to their former glory, but into an interesting reminder of what they once used to be.

Photo credits: Michelle Salter

Related blog post: Have You Seen The Stew Ponds?

Michelle Salter writes:

How old is the pond? The first clear reference to the pond was in the 14th century, when “the great fishery (of) Fleet Ponds” is referred to in the Rolls of Account of Crondall Manor. By this time, there seems to have been a thriving fishery of considerable importance and two ponds.

Do any museums house records of the pond? Many Victorian naturalists visited Fleet Pond and references to its flora frequently appeared in natural history journals from this era, with herbarium sheets located at the Natural History Museum in Kensington and also at Reading and Oxford.

When was the pond used as an ice rink? In the 1840’s, the South Western Railway ran special excursions to Fleet Pond, including a “Skating Specials” in the Winter.

When was the pond, not a pond? In 1940, the MOD completely drained the pond to stop hostile bombers from using it as a landmark to find the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough (see photo above).

What title did the pond receive in 1951? The pond was designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1951 and was one of the first sites in Hampshire to receive this distinction, due to the importance of the lake to waterfowl and the rich aquatic and heathland flora.