Town End Farm, holiday accommodation in Yorkshire

A luxurious escape to the North York Moors

Tel: 01751 417960 Email: relax@townendfarm.org.uk

The Village Pond and the elusive Turtle Dove

by | Mar 13, 2025 | Latest

Black and white photograph of village pond with houses in the back ground.
Sepia photo of the pond with ducks on it, and woman in background with her washing.
Black and white photograph of Cows walking through a village pond.

If you’ve stayed at the Long Barn, you probably walked past the site of the original village pond without noticing it. Old photographs of the village show the original village pond opposite the Reading Room at the southern end.

The old pond was a historic dew pond, sometimes called cloud ponds or mist ponds. People created dew ponds in the 18th and 19th centuries to provide water for farm animals.  Despite their magical name, it’s thought that the water in the ponds came mainly from rainfall, rather than dew, clouds or mist.

Sadly, over the years, the clay liner cracked, and vegetation swallowed the pond. The village proposed a plan to restore the pond. Unfortunately, nothing came of it despite strong support from the village for the project.

A talk at the village hall on the declining number of turtle doves locally sparked some discussions on potential funding from the North York Moors for the pond. These doves need very specific habitats including water that they can easily access, with little vegetation round the edges.

The North York Moors Trust project, Birds on the Edge were approached given the work they are doing with local communities to create havens for all kinds of wildlife. They have four target bird species which are critically endangered; the Turtle Dove, Yellowhammer, Redstart and Song Thrush.

Diiger excavating pond on moorland in front of green and white building.
Restored pond at sunset with sun sinking below the horizon.
Green beer bottle found in pond restoration.

To cut a long story short, over many months of negotiation and consultation, the National Lottery Heritage Fund and S106 agreed to provide funding. And in May 20204, the digger arrived.  Workers then slowly restored the pond following the strict criteria for this process.

Because of the location, archaeologists conducted an archaeological watching brief  to monitor the works.

Excavators found the pictured bottle, which likely dates between 1896 and 1954. Which means it may have originated from the village pub when it was called the OddFellows Arms.

The next step that Birds on the Edge will be to focus on creating feeding and nesting habitats for these species in the local area.

It’s fantastic to see the pond finally restored and now begin to settle into the landscape.

So far no turtle doves have been spotted at the pond, but we’ll keep you posted…