TALES FROM THE HILLS

(Ashmansworth and Crux Easton)

These days, a pond in the country works wonders for wildlife. This fact prompted the Ford Motor Company fifty years ago to sponsor a campaign: Save Our Village Ponds.

However, it was not for wildlife that the ponds up here were dug, but for sheer survival. There was no other water and, without ponds, a village nearly 800 feet above the sea could not survive. A thousand years ago, this village was called Aeshmeresworth: ‘the village with the pond and the ash trees.’

Surprisingly, our hill-top ponds kept supplying water even without rain; and the higher the pond, the more water it supplied! Their secret was their very height – they were filling from hill-top mists, whether it rained or not.

Some of these ponds were for communal use. They are shown on the 1840s tithe maps as part of the public highway, and as such they were exempt from tithes. They are presumably maintainable at public expense. On that point, keep trees out or they’ll drink your pond dry!

In Ashmansworth, the ponds shown as part of the highway include the village pond opposite the Plough (now filled in), the Mere, the Cross Lane ponds (which also appear on our oldest map, the Taylor map, in 1759), the pond at the start of the East Woodhay road and the pond on Stony Lane opposite the lane to the church. In Crux Easton, the tithe map shows only the pond by the farm and the pond down The Drove.

Two tales are told about Ashmansworth ponds: the first tells of Diana Barton from The Flint House wading into the one opposite the Plough and dragging a drowning woman to safety. The poor woman had apparently been driven to despair by the harassment of the taxman. The second also features Diana Barton: this time she rescues a lad who’s fallen through thin ice on the Mere. Diana, being ex-Bomber Command, was clearly seen as the first resort in such emergencies.

Crux Easton can’t match that, claiming only that the pond on The Drove is ‘haunted’ … but at least it’s not by vampires; The Drove in season is a glorious mass of wild garlic!

Agricola, February 2023           

 

Following on from this piece from Agricola, we have received feedback from someone who did fall into the Mere pond!

"Good Morning, I was reading your article about the pond and wondered if this would be of any interest to you. I use to live at Ashmansworth and at the age of three I also fell through the ice and was rescued by three women, one of them being Miss Barton. I know the exact date this happened, March 3rd 1955, as it was the same day that my sister was born. My maiden name was Paice. It was recorded in the local paper of which I have a copy. Kind Regards Eileen Wilmer"