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Duck decoy at Abbotsbury Swannery is a seventeenth-century wildfowl trapping installation located within the Abbotsbury estate in Dorset. The decoy comprises a system of shallow ponds and channels designed to funnel wild ducks into an enclosed net, exploiting their natural behaviour and feeding patterns to enable capture for food and feathers. Such decoys represent a specialised form of medieval and post-medieval game management, with this example forming part of the broader swannery complex at Abbotsbury, which had been maintained since at least the medieval period. The site survives as an archaeological monument recording the practical application of aristocratic estate husbandry and the management of wetland resources during the early modern period.
Duck decoy at Abbotsbury Swannery, 630m SSW of Horsepool Farm is a scheduled monument protected by Historic England under reference 1015695. View the official record →
Duck decoy at Abbotsbury Swannery is a seventeenth-century wildfowl trapping installation located within the Abbotsbury estate in Dorset. It is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument by Historic England (NHLE) under reference 1015695.
Duck decoy at Abbotsbury Swannery, 630m SSW of Horsepool Farm is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, legally protected by Historic England (NHLE) — the body responsible for designating and safeguarding heritage sites in England. The official designation reference is 1015695.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Round barrow 250yds (230m) S of Chapel Coppice (0.3 km), St Catherine's Chapel, field system and quarries at Chapel Hill (0.7 km), Two fishponds in Oddens Wood (0.9 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 15 strands of Duck decoy at Abbotsbury Swannery, 630m SSW of Horsepool Farm's history, each drawn from the record and mapped to the exact spot:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Duck decoy at Abbotsbury Swannery, 630m SSW of Horsepool Farm stands on Kellaways Formation And Oxford Clay Formation (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Oxfordian. The rock here is mudstone, siltstone and sandstone.