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1913 Tolmare dew-pond with Blackpatch Hill in the background. The racehorse is from the yard of Thomas Young who trained at the Vale Stables in those days. |
THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — www.findonvillage.com created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.
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1913 Tolmare dew-pond with Blackpatch Hill in the background. The racehorse is from the yard of Thomas Young who trained at the Vale Stables in those days. |
THE TOLMARE DEW-POND
O.S. 110 008
Copyright Valerie Martin 2003
I am sorry to say that many Findon dew-ponds have sadly disappeared.
I would like to put forward some other candidates for reconstruction in picturesque spots in the Findon area. Firstly, the now unrecognisable dew-pond on the over-grown site beside the Long Furlong A280 road at Tolmare Farm in Findon.
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c.1914 |
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c.1914 |
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This photograph is entitled "Long Furlong". The dew-pond at the Tolmare Farm entrance can be seen... centre right.... with the old coach road at the back of the Muntham Estate, leading off northwards to Chantry Post and Storrington. No date given. |
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Tolmare dew-pond in its heyday — Muntham Clump can be seen in the background. |
click on image to enlarge
The photograph was taken in 1931 and depicts the then flourishing dew pond..... most likely inhabited by Great Crested Newts etc as the aircraft flew over.
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The Tolmare dew-pond pre 1932 with the old coach road over the Downs from High Salvington to Storrington bisecting the A280 route and disappearing northwards into the distance. (Original photograph by John Pelling). |
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Tolmare Farm dew-pond. |
At one time there was a dew-pond teeming with wildlife, including great-crested newts, on the north side of the Long Furlong A280 road. John Linfield who now lives in Horsham and was brought up in Findon, says the shepherds would halt their flocks for a drink at the dew-pond on their way to the Findon Sheep fair. This was at the Tolmare Farm entrance by the now overgrown and disused limekilns left from the days when lime was used agriculturally. Today the site of the dew-pond is a rubbish tip and an eyesore.
The Tolmare Farm dew-pond was once a beauty spot swarming with wildlife all the year round.
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The last years of the Tolmare dew-pond as seen in 1962. O.S. 110 008 Original photograph by John Pelling. |
I might as well record for posterity how the alarm was raised in the village in the autumn of 2003 about that most controversial radio mast planted in the Tolmare dew-pond. It seems that no one took much notice until someone read on my News and Views my comment after I had seen the mast being erected. I pointed out that it was on the site of a dew-pond. From then on the word went round like wildfire.
I know that mobile phones are a part of our life but the growing network of them springing up are a blemish on the countryside which is supposed to be an area of outstanding natural beauty... and to have a mast erected in the centre of an ancient dew-pond site was unbelievable.
It is rather ironical that the dew-pond had remained derelict and forgotten in the undergrowth amidst piles of rubbish for years and no one has worried. I guess that only a small percentage of the population knew it had once existed. As soon as I mentioned the word "dew-pond" when the mast appeared, everyone was up in arms.
The mast slap in the centre of the dew-pond!
Continue if you would like to read about The Cissbury Farm Dew-pond.
This is Findon Village — www.findonvillage.com is a continually growing record created by Valerie Martin exclusively for documenting life in Findon.
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E-mail: valeriemartin@findonvillage.com |
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