SKATING ON SHENFIELD COMMON POND - VICTORIAN STYLE

Sylvia Kent

A snowy Shenfield pond in 1979.

 

Peter Robert Kent

Enjoy Brentwood More’s history columnist, author and vice-president of the Brentwood Writer’s Circle, Sylvia Kent tells us about Victorians skating on a pond in Shenfield Common, when winters were a lot harsher!

Shenfield Common in 1972.

It’s strange how cold weather changes our familiar countryside. Take for instance, Shenfield Common, which encompasses the wood-fringed mill pond that so many residents love.

Even in a covid-pandemic situation where residents are urged to stay safely at home, many locals have included a solitary, socially-distanced walk around the pond for their daily dose of exercise.

This week, there has been a decidedly ethereal appearance to the area - no sign of birds, trees laced with snowy cobwebs and a thin covering of ice on the pond, giving one a snapshot of how Shenfield Common must have looked like a century ago.

Check out the 1777 Chapman & Andre map in the local museum, and you will see that a tiny triangular pond is visible. It wasn’t until the snowy winter of 1885 that one of the new Conservators of Shenfield Common (a group established in February 1884), suggested that the small pool alongside the existing pond could be joined, giving more room for the pleasure of skating in wintertime. Apparently, winters were often more severe at the end of the nineteenth century, more so than we experience today.

One of my favourite local writers, John Larkin, described in his book, Brentwood Fireside Tales 1906-26:

“On summer evenings and early mornings, came young men, old men and big boys. Some with picks, some with shovels, some with wheelbarrows. Working men, city clerks, bank clerks, shop assistants and tradesmen – in fact, all sorts, and conditions of men, set to work Some picked, shovelled, wheeled away, whilst others went to the Artichoke for beer. So, by working hard in black coats, cricket costumes, football jerseys velveteen coats and in shirt sleeves the job was finished and the mill pond as we see it now (Larkin was then writing in 1926), is evidence of what one can do by volunteer labour, if men are of the mind.”

Some local residents have described another pond that had existed at the end of that century - not deep enough for skating - but was regarded by the youngsters as “a wonderful sliding pond.” This was known as How’s Folly which had been dug on the far side of Shenfield Common, running alongside Ingrave Road. It was the brainchild of a master at Brentwood School (Mr. How) who lived nearby and who took it into his head to pay men to extricate the soil, with the help of his students, and create his pond that gave such fun to youngsters in hard winters, How’s pond lasted for many years, after which the council grassed the area, planting the willows we see today.

To discover more about Brentwood’s past, my latest book BRENTWOOD IN 50 BUILDINGS, released by Amberley Publishing in Stroud is available from all good bookshops.ISBN 978-1-4456-9213-5 and Amazon. Signed copies can be obtained from Sylvia Kent via www.sylviakent.blogspot.com