Is Ecclesfield Pond being sold ?

Tonight's the night it comes up for auction. What a great buy for someone.

Aaahh ... i know what youre talking about it was mostly silted up when we were kids and to be honest I always imagined it was either a filtration system for the dam or perhaps had been pits for water wheels(which the latter of course makes no sence with the lack of buildings)

 

As for your Willagar/willagarth quotes , yes I remember stickle backing,clambering across the fallen trees to fish off the island ,why was that made like that i wonder? pity the poor fish that was doomed to an old pot sink in the back garden

Local historians believe that the island in the Willowgarth held a house or stockade in the 1400's, with a moat all around it. Small house, but then people were so small in those days.

always thought the island was there to keep some kind of animals on

the water would have kept them safe from predators.the moat was def dug out for a reason but the big trees on it must have been growing for hundreds of years.there was big dead trees there 60 years ago when we played on it

It went under the hammer last night for £50000

It went under the hammer last night for £50000

It has some dark secrets. There have been a few suicides by drowning. The dam/pond did at one time turn water wheels for what is now the transport firm next door. Then it was a paper mill, but before that I don't know. Supposedly in the early part of the 20th century, a horse and cart was tipping snow into the dam, after a spell of heavy snowfalls. The horse slipped and it plus the cart went into the water and were never seen again. How the horse got to the dam bank in the first place baffles me. Another theory is that the stone for the building of Ecclesfield Church came from there, and that is how the dam came into existence. I would rather believe that the stone came from the quarry on Hunshelf Hill. Easier go get stone from a hillside than out of the ground. Today's technology would answer that by comparison of the quarry stone and the church stone. During the middle 1800's, a girl, who today would be described as hard of learning, worked at the mill next door. She became pregnant and gave birth to a boy. To hide her shame (single parents weren't looked upon as they are today) she strangled the baby and threw his body into the dam. She was arrested and her trial took place at the Black Bull Inn (same site as today's pub but a different building). She was judged to be insane and sent to be detained at Feoffees Hall. Most likely this was the Feoffees Hall in Yew Lane, the old British Legion.

felt like chucking my self in a few times when fishing there years ago.thanks for the knowledge Nigel.