Dovecotes are always a pleasure to find - quirky and curious, raised in all manner of shapes and sizes. It’s likely that if you come across one in the wild today, you are seeing a modern affair - ornamental and pretty. But while the dovecotes of old could be comely enough, they were first and foremost functional, built to provide meat, eggs, feathers and even fertiliser.
It is believed that dovecotes came to Britain with the Normans, and the earliest remains of a dovecote here date from the 12th century, at Raunds in Northamptonshire. They were the purvey of the rich and powerful, at least until the 16th century, and virtually all of the few medieval examples remaining are to be found upon the lands of manors and monasteries, and within the confines of castles. Pigeon was considered a delicacy - especially the ‘squabs’, the chicks gathered at about four weeks of age. Pigeon pie was very popular, indeed, and can be found in the domestic accounts of the powerful.
It has been said that dovecotes were popular for providing a year round source of meat, but this is something of a myth, at least according to the research of McCann, whose work on the household accounts of the rich and influential has found that pigeon was eaten during the spring and summer - the winter months less so. But it was certainly the case that winter born squabs could be sold for huge sums of money, such was the popularity of the meat. Eggs were also gathered for food, feathers for mattresses, while pigeon guano was considered an excellent fertiliser. It's worth noting that saltpetre was also discovered to be a component of pigeon guano, and as a consequence almost as valuable as silver in industrial quantities.
The Leeswood Hall Dovecote has been dated to the mid 18th century, and was probably contemporary to the building of Leeswood Hall - perhaps a little later. It may well have been designed by Francis Smith of Warwick, responsible for the design of Leeswood Hall, as part of the landscaped park of Stephen Switzer. It is also worth noting that the nest boxes within the dovecote do not reach from floor to eaves. With the arrival of the voracious and much larger Brown Rat to these Islands in the 18th century, dovecotes were often built with a clear four or five feet of distance from the floor to the first layer of nest boxes in order to give some protection to the nesting birds.
The remains of the dovecote remain impressive despite its ruinous interior. It is a red brick building with impressive stone quoins, giving it a sturdy air of strength. Some 20 feet by 20 feet the walls are a robust 2 feet thick - again, possibly to deter the determined attentions of rattus norvegicus. The roof was once pyramidal and externally, this is still discernible - a little imagination is all it takes, and we all have that now, don’t we?
Some 350 nesting boxes, all with alighting ledges, accessed by a stairs to a purpose built first floor.
Within there are the remains of a stone staircase that leads to what would have been the first floor, from which rise some 350 L-shaped nest boxes.1 Each layer of boxes has a proud masonry stringer-course used less for decorative effect, but rather for alighting birds. There is no evidence that a rotating potence was used here.2 Apparently, there was once a timber lantern, a cupola, the vague remains of which were still extant in the 1960s but which have now been lost.
A timber lantern - a cuppola, once crowned the Leeswood Hall Dovecote.
Dovecotes began to fall out of favour with the advent of new agricultural methods, which made the availability of year round rounds entirely possible. But it was also the demands of the Napoleonic War at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century that caused the demise of the dovecote in huge numbers, as farmers were encouraged to turn over as much land as possible to crop development. It is not known with any degree of certainty when the Leeswood Hall Dovecote fell into disuse, but it would seem it was used as a barn of sorts at some point, since the two opposite doorways were enlarged to this end. It’s possible of course, given its two story build, that the ground floor was always used as a barn - it would have seemed practical to do so.
You will more than likely come to Leeswood for the glorious White Gates - quite right. But as you’re moving on, with wide eyes and a smile to go with it, have a look-see in the field to the south of the Hall. Park up on the side of the road and have a wander to the dovecote. You’ll not lose that smile, I promise you.
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Footnotes
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1 The nest boxes again rise some few feet from the floor.
2 Simply defined as a rotating central wooden pole with ladders to help people reach the nesting boxes.
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Further Reading
A.O. Cooke, A Book of Dovecotes, London, (1920)
G. Lloyd, Flintshire Dovecotes, Flintshire Historical Society Publications, Vol.22, (1965-66)
J. McCann, An Historical Enquiry into the Design and Use of Dovecotes, Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society, Vol.35, (1991)
Websites
J. McCann, The Truth about Dovecotes
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