HISTORY OF DECOYS. 95 



Bont'iieinoulh. — Lord Malmesbury states that on the streams at 

 Bournemouth sixty years ago, before the present town arose, there used to 

 be a Decoy, the site of which is still known as the " 'coy Pond." No par- 

 ticulars, however, of its working are now obtainable. 



I must here refer to Souley Pond, 7 miles NE. of Lymington, in the 

 parish of Beaulieu, on Lord Henry Scott's estate near the Beaulieu river 

 estuary, and once the property of the famous Abbey of Beaulieu. This 

 large piece of water is frequented in severe weather by numbers of wild- 

 fowl from off the Solent, and could be made into a first-class Decoy at any 

 time. Though sometimes spoken of as The Decoy locally, it never was 

 one, as it was formed to work by water-pressure the iron hammers used 

 for shaping metal for vessels, as well as for other purposes, in the days 

 when wood was the only fuel available for smelting purposes. The old 

 forge is still well remembered in the locality, and the beat of the hammers 

 could, in a SW. wind, be heard at Beaulieu, 4 miles distant. 



New Forest. — An enclosure in the New Forest is still called the 

 Decoy Pond, though it is now devoid of water. It is situated half way 

 between Beaulieu and Lyndhurst, on the head waters of the Beaulieu 

 river, near Ipley Farm, a little N. of Yew Tree Heath and Blackdown. 

 In a map of 1789 it is marked at that date even as "The old Decoy 

 Pond," so that, as may be supposed, there are no records of it to be found. 



Decoys in the County of Hereford. 



Decoys in use. Decoys not in use. 



None. [ Shobdon Court. 



Shobdon Court, 5^ miles E. of Presteigne (Lord Bateman's). There 

 used to be a Decoy here on a pool of eight acres, with three pipes, and 

 many years ago Lord Bateman had a new pipe made by George Skelton, 

 junior, who came from Norfolk to construct it. 



But this, together with the others, became silted up, and the Decoy has 

 been practically useless for twenty years. Lord Bateman tells me that he 

 remembers catching thirty-five ducks in it at one time. 



