‘Dew ponds’ might be considered rather too ‘niche’ a subject to be of much interest to archaeologists, but, as the author David Rivière illustrates in this volume, they were once widely distributed and relatively common features of the landscape. This is particularly true of large areas of downland on permeable bedrock such as chalk and limestone; as such, it is entirely possible for archaeologists to encounter their remains, for example in infrastructure projects across such landscapes, or in edge of town developments.
This is a slim volume, but, although brief, the author writes engagingly about the form, history, construction and use of these features, and of their conservation and reconstruction today. The volume concludes with a review of some present initiatives in renewing dewponds and how they can support biodiversity.
The name, and the feature, the author explains, have a history of misunderstanding and misinterpretation attached to them. The name may have originated in Wiltshire, and by the 19th century it was in common use, along with alternatives such as ‘cloud’ or ‘mist’ ponds ((p.16). These names reflected an apparently general belief that the water in these ponds was in some way derived from the air, rather than from a more prosaic source. It was not until the 1930s that the prosaic explanation was accepted, with rain recognised as the principal source of the water in them.
While the source of the water remained uncertain for decades, the ponds seem always to have been recognised as artificial, with descriptions of their making going back to the late 18th century (p. 15). Chapters 4 and 5 are perhaps of most practical application to archaeology as they consider the dating of dewponds and the methods used in their construction and maintenance.
Chapter 4 considers the difficulties of dating dewponds and cites excavated examples. The likelihood that any are Neolithic in date, as was once thought, is firmly dismissed, but the possibility of dewponds of some antiquity existing is not. A convincing example (p.32) is of a possible early medieval dewpond at Milk Hill, Wiltshire probably to be equated with a feature for watering cattle called Oxenmere in an Anglo Saxon charter. The author notes the single example known to him of a dewpond being excavated ‘by qualified archaeologists’ in recent times, at Mill Down, Friston, East Sussex (pp. 33, 36) (but see also Note, below), This dewpond was recorded as a simple excavation into clay-with-flints and was lined with flints. There was no indication that it was anything other than post-medieval in date.
In the chapter on Construction (Chapter 5) the variety of construction methods used to create dewponds is considered, and this highlights the differences between natural features and artificially constructed ponds. It also includes an interesting historical section on a particularly famous family of dewpond makers and illustrates the connection with other forms of water management such as well-sinking and the creation and management of ornamental water features (pp. 47-50).
The historical context of dewponds is discussed in Chaper 6, which includes a discussion of the agricultural economy and the link between that and the creation and use of dewponds. It is reiterated here as well as elsewhere in the volume that the majority of dewponds were created in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The remainder of the volume (Chapters 7-9) are perhaps of less direct interest to archaeologists, but illuminate the rich and varied contribution dewponds have made to, for example, local folklore, and to local communities in a variety of ways, including as places to store munitions in wartime, to hide smuggled goods, and even to provide water hazards on golf courses! They have also been a source of inspiration for artists, particularly Eric Ravilious, and writers, including Virginia Woolf. The final section (Chapter 9) highlights the increasing interest in dewponds as a way of increasing biodiversity in farmland and the ways in which they may be restored and their value enhanced.
This may seem rather a long review on a volume only 96 pages long about a perhaps rather unfamiliar rural feature, but the volume offers a wealth of useful information for archaeologists who may well encounter traces of these features during excavations in rural areas. Not only will it help in identifying them, but excavation can in turn add to knowledge of the range of construction and maintenance practice associated with them. It is also simply a well written and interesting volume.
Note: there is at least one other published excavation of a dewpond under modern archaeological practice known to the reviewer. This was at Dean Bottom on the Marlborough Downs, Wiltshire, excavated in 1979 (Gingell, C.J. The Marlborough Downs. A later Bronze Age landscape and its origins, pp 30-31). This includes a drawn section through a dewpond and the finding of dating evidence (a sherd of transfer printed pottery) in the main lining of the pond. The excavator also makes an argument based on the excavated evidence that the pond may not have been excavated on a fresh site but that the modern makers had chosen a site where there was some sign of an earlier pond, which may have been associated with a nearby Middle Bronze Age enclosure.