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FishFarming2

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 11 months ago

Mediaeval fish farming in Yateley

 

A POSSIBLE EXPLANATION FOR MEDIÆVAL WEALTH

It is recorded in the Rental of the Priory of St Swithin, the lords of the Manor of Crondall, that each settlement paid a fee called Pondpany. This is thought to be a tax on fish ponds, possibly only to maintain Fleet Pond, which could then have been within the demesne land of the Lord of the Manor. Yateley paid the highest fee. Fleet pond itself was artificially increased in size and could have been a vast fish farm.

 

Vestigial fish ponds still exist in Yateley and Eversley. Streams running off the heath were dammed to form ponds. It is easier now to visualise them in Eversley since there are no modern housing estates. Firgrove Manor has ponds as did Kits Croft, before they were joined to make one big lake, whih was then removed. There is a series of ponds running down the east side of Cricket Hill starting at Wyndham's Pool. It is possible that ponds were dug out along the Blackwater where are today's gravel pits.

 

Religious observance of the rules of fasting required the consumption of vast amounts of fish -- not only on Fridays. In the six weeks of Lent the monasteries consumed large tonnages of fish. Sea fishing was hazardous, fresh water fish ponds are easier to manage and more economic. The best sea fishing grounds were distant from the main markets, whereas we are one day's journey from London or Winchester by cart.

 

The value of fish in the ponds is likely to have been taxed nationally as movable wealth, and ponds taxed as land, just as the monastery charged separate annual fees for land and pondpany.

 

There were four opportunities for fish farming within the parish:

  • the northern part of Fleet Pond was within the parish of Yateley in 1334;
  • there were opportunities for constructing ponds using the streams running down from the common;
  • gravel pits which flooded naturally could be used for fish farming;
  • riverside fish farming could have taken place along the Blackwater.

 

It is probable that there was not a single wealthy fish farmer. Any mediaeval Yateley copyholder who could build a dam across a stream on his own copyholding could participate in fish farming. It is thus an industry easy to enter, with low initial costs. The accumulated wealth of all fish farmers might have produced the sort of taxation levels assessed in 1334.

 

 

CONCLUSION: YATELEY COULD HAVE PAID HIGH TAXES BECAUSE OF FISH FARMING BUT IN ORDER TO CONFIRM THIS HYPOTHESIS THE SOCIETY SHOULD ENCOURAGE FURTHER DOCUMENTARY RESEARCH AND POSSIBLY ARCHAEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION.

 

 

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