Perambulation details

Letter dated 14th May 1890, from H H Coventry of Lindford to Mr Laverty

Lindford
14 May 1890

Dear Mr Laverty,

Of the various knotty points in the boundary which you brought under my notice, all except one yielded a ready solution when confirmed with range rods and tape, but that one was certainly a knot that seemed of Gordian complication. However I think that I have hit on the right way of untying it. This point affects the boundary from 120 to 142 of this year's treading. I should say at once that I consider the recent treading, 123 to 126, to be quite wrong. The description, 90 to 92, of the 1873 treading agrees with the Ordnance boundary and seems to be correct. That the party here went wrong or were led wrong by Mr G Lemon is scarcely to be wondered at. The boundary for miles had followed streams, rivulets or marshes - always, that is, the lowest ground: and the description given of the old treading of 1772 is in part apparently confused that it is only with difficulty that one can arrive at its true meaning.

Article 52 of the 1772 treading says, "Thence up the middle of this great Pond to the tail of the lesser or Long Ogmoor Pond which falls or is emptied into the greater". The italics are mine. Please also observe that the long pond is only touched at the tail of it. It is art: 53, however, that is the puzzling one. It says, "Thence from the tail of the lesser pond along the cut or canal or watercourse by which it is supplied to the great morass or marsh". Along the cut:- it must be something artificial then: canal:- something also of considerable dimensions: or watercourse:- a work then capable of water flowing along it; fairly level, that is, though by no means on the lowest ground: by which it is supplied to the great morass. Now really this is too bad. Either the old perambulator - I apologise for the epithet for I mean him no insult - wrote nonsense or I am lacking in insight. We shall see, presently, that it is the man of 1890 who is at fault, not he of 1772.

It is clear that the parish boundary does leave the lowest ground and does follow something, very indefinite now, but called nevertheless a cut, canal or watercourse. The fact is clear, but I am not quite satisfied unless I can see the reason why. Allow me, then, to go back; first to go back a very long time - to a time when artificial works, Ogmoor ponds, cuts, canals and watercourses did not exist here. Undoubtedly at such a time the parish boundary would keep to the lower ground and follow up Oxney Marsh, as the most striking feature of the ground, to its source in the great morass, hidden now by fir woods until one comes on to it, boggy still, but rendered passable by deep and well maintained drainage from which flows a copious and perennial stream. This morass is of some extent and abuts on the Portsmouth Road at the level piece between Deadwater hill and White hill.

Now there came a time when Ogmoor pond was formed by banking in the lower end of the depression of which the pond forms the lowest part, abutting nearly on to Oxney marsh. I say "was formed by banking in" for this, like every pond - and they are very numerous - in the district, has been artificially formed. This certainly was not done without a definite and practical objective. The object, I firmly believe, was the obtaining of water power by an overfall for the working of tilt hammers in connection with the extensive iron industry which was formerly carried on in this neighbourhood, or for fulling and other mills required by a population probably far in excess of that now occupying the district. On examining Ogmoor pond, however, it at once strikes one that the natural drainage flowing into it is from not more than about 200 acres, and that its outflow would be insufficient to effect a result commensurate with the cost of formation of the pond and erection of wheel, buildings, etc. Here perhaps our old perambulator of 1772 may help us, and his article 53 may, like the old barbers sign, so tempting but misleading, be very much altered by a little punctuation.

I'll make a little - a very little - alteration and put a comma after "supplied". Now we find that the watercourse or canal or cut supplied water from the Great morass to the lesser pond which falls or is emptied into the greater. This then is the secret. The copious stream now flowing out of the great morass was caught at its source and led along a higher level so as to run into the ponds. Here then we have a first rate water privilege.

We can now go back to a period, the commencement of which I am not antiquary enough to date, but which terminated not so very long ago - a period when the iron railing round new St Pauls, erected after the great fire of London and completed in 1710 was supplied from iron works in Sussex. At this time the surroundings of Ogmoor pond must have presented a very different aspect to their present ones. Oxney marsh, now so impassably swampy through the water being dammed up to work the water wheel pumping water to Broxhead Court, was then drained, at least below Ogmoor, by a deep cut to obtain the utmost benefit of probably a 14 foot fall from Ogmoor pond. The pond itself was dammed two or three feet higher, making its water surface very much more extensive and causing it to reach, at its southern bay, a point very near the long pond, now a mere swampy hollow, but then an extensive and striking piece of water. The roads, now embracing the ponds between them, had then no existence but tracks trodden by frequent trains of pack mules and horses laden largely with lime for use as a flux with the iron ore, would cross the marsh by the hard that exists here and, coming direct from Selborne, would here divide, one track leading by Lindford or by Hungerford to Frensham, the other passing by Standford and Passfield to Headley and Bramshott. This traffic with the buildings and works at the foot of the pond (miscalled "head" in all the perambulations) and workmen's cottages on the rise above would make the scene a busy one - very different from its present desolate and heron-haunted aspect. At this time too the enclosures and fir woods were not [there], so that the ponds and watercourse would form a very striking and visible feature.

As to how this feature became the parish boundary, which I have supposed originally to have followed the lowest ground, is not difficult to conjecture. Here was something of value - something that is, in an otherwise improductive region of heath and bog, [which] could pay rates. Though this valuable property lay wholly in Headley, it was a thing for which Selborne would fight, and the more so that she had in her hand a very effective weapon for the purpose - a very small cut on the Selborne side of the swamp would easily tap the great morass and lessen, if not cut off, the supply of water flowing through the canal to the ponds. The great morass, too, being equally in either parish, the water supply would be as much from Selborne as from Headley. It would therefore be equitable and natural that the user of the water should pay a rate to both parishes and, the land being of itself valueless, the water course or canal should have a peculiar and distinctive character, rendering it quite distinct from the drainage ditches and enclosure banks which have been formed in recent times. Its purpose being to lead water from the great morass to the ponds, it should be nearly level with a slight fall northwards. It would be irregular in direction following the contour of the ground. It would be banked entirely on one side, that is on the downhill side and, as its object was to deliver water at as high a level as possible, it would not generally be deep. All these characteristics it has. Its very shallowness causes its present indistinctness. At the end nearest the ponds it was necessary to pass through somewhat higher ground here therefore it was deeper and is consequently quite distinct.

Placing myself now at the boundary cross mentioned in paragraph 126 of the recent perambulation, the "cross on the end of a bank", one is at the point where "the cut, canal or watercourse" ended and delivered its water at will to either the long pond for storage or to the Great pond for immediate use. There are yet visible on the ground traces of a runnel to the long pond - a very short one as this pond, when full, would rise very nearly to the point at which we are standing - and of a longer one towards the great pond. About three chains off, along this runnel, is the boundary cross shown on the Ordnance boundary, and a few yards further on yet, barring the way as it were, is a low bank, vertical on the hither side but sloping on the side towards the great pond. This I take to be the remains of an overfall weir and am confirmed in this opinion by finding immediately on the vertical side of the bank a deep groove about 5 inches wide and 9 deep. This, I think, must have been the seat of timbering, now rotted away, but of which the form has been preserved by the roots of heath and swamp grasses.

Now turning round we can follow the cut, canal or watercourse without a hitch in accordance with the successive paragraphs of the recent perambulation from No 126 on to 136. Here to 139 the ground is swampy, encumbered by tall tufts of hummocky grass, and cut in many directions by drainage grips, newer and older. At this part the cut, canal or watercourse is not traceable and, indeed, may never have existed in a definite form. The ground to the right, being somewhat higher, may have acted as a natural dam, taking the place of the bank which is found on the downhill side of this cut everywhere else in its course. Here, in fact, the water may have been allowed to widen out to its natural limits forming a sedgy pool. Of the two treadings given here in the perambulation notes I should prefer Mr Lemon's. He seems to me to have taken about the middle of the sedgy pool, while the other treading takes the somewhat higher ground to the right.

From here (139) the water course is quite easily traceable and bears the characteristics I before mentioned, on to 142 where it originally tapped the great morass. At this place the swamp leading from and forming the natural outlet of the water from the great morass is quite narrow, firm ground coming up on either side to form a narrow neck. At this place there would have probably been a low dam. I could see no traces of one: the large ditches and bathing pond, recently constructed, and occupying this part of the ground quite account for the disappearance, however, of a work which need never have been more than slight.

Before leaving the subject I should like to remark on the rapidity with which the works represented by these ponds and this canal, works of considerable extent and much interest, have become almost obliterated and the very tradition of their existence died out. The whole organization was in working order, probably, well into the last century. The canal still carried water to the ponds in the last quarter of the 18th century (as shown by the treading of 1772), probably even to its very end. When Suttons enclosure (which includes the great morass) was formed and the drainage works carried out - and this I think was about 80 years ago - then first would water have ceased to flow through the canal and its rapid decadence to have commenced. I think one may assert with truth that the very careful way in which the Headley boundary perambulation has been carried out has been the one thing that has saved from utter oblivion this record on a not uninteresting past.

I am Dear Mr Laverty
very faithfully yours
H H Coventry