Early 18C Decoy

Parks and Gardens Historical aspects of garden design through the ages Early 18C Decoy

Early 18C Decoy

Designed decoys were developed during the 18C. Skellingthorpe Decoy (HE Grade II) and landing pond west of Lincoln.

Plan of Skellingthorpe Decoy (Image: Steffie Shields)

This pond is surrounded by three features:

  1. a raised boundary walk
  2. a screen of trees offering seclusion
  3. an outer sunk fence or ditch.

Overgrown landing pond at Skellingthorpe (Image: Steffie Shields)

Several narrow channels or pipes lead off from the main landing pond. Here 50,000 pairs of wildfowl were netted, caught and taken to market in London annually.

A Mallard (Image: Steffie Shields)

Previous Topic
Back to Lesson
Next Topic