Ashby Decoy

Family history research takes you along unexpected paths. In tracing ancestors, and their siblings, and their siblings’ children, I have come across many strange, puzzling, and fascinating things, such as old names for diseases, like phthisis, and the names of medical conditions now rare, such as erisepylis. 

One distant relative was Joshua Blackburn, whose parents’ gravestone in Swinefleet churchyard records that he died in 1872 aged 24. Following this up, I found he left a three-year-old daughter who lived until 1967. She was 97, yet her father died at 24. The chance of life. 

But it was the name of the place of his death that caught my attention: Ashby Decoy. What and where was that? You frequently see the name on maps, such as in Decoy Farm. 

A typical duck decoy pipe, showing screens, hoops, nets, and working dog

Fortunately, it is easier to look these things up than ever before. The word decoy is of Dutch origin. Decoys were a method of catching wildfowl. They consisted of a large pond with up to five long curving channels known as pipes running off in different directions. Flocks of ducks or other fowl flying overhead would land on the pond and be encouraged to swim along one of the pipes. The pipes were covered by hoops and netting, and gradually narrowed towards the end where the nets were dropped and the fowl caught. As ducks tend to follow foxes so they can watch where they are, dogs were used to encourage them to the pipe end. Food, whistles, and tame ducks could also be used. The reason for the choice of pipes was to allow catchers to stay downwind of the prey. Fowl caught in decoys were free of lead gun pellets. Evil. The poor ducks. They had been flying free. 

Ashby Decoy, two miles east of the River Trent, to the south-west of what is now Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, was in the nineteenth century one of the most successful decoys in the country, catching over 6,000 ducks in some years. One day, 248 were caught. The ducks were mainly mallard and teal, with occasional shovellers, wideon, and pintails, and a handful of the rare gadwalls and gangeneys. It had a two-acre lake in ten-acres of woodland, and four pipes. It is now the site of a golf club for which the lake provides irrigation. 

The site of Ashby Decoy, now a golf club (map and satellite image)

The whole region, including Goole, Thorne, and Crowle Moors, abounded in wildfowl of all kinds until the land was drained in the 1630s by re-coursing the River Don, leaving many small lakes around which ducks and geese bred. There were also many decoys. The last avocet nest in Britain was found in the area in 1840 (although they re-established themselves around the Wash in the 1940). Blacktoft Sands nature reserve is now here at the mouth of the Trent. 

As for Joshua Blackburn, I never got round to researching him much further. Did he die by accident or of disease? You cannot spend £10 on every death certificate that might be of interest. [See addendum at end].

Did he actually live at the Decoy? It was common for hired men to live at the farms where they worked, with board and lodgings provided as part of their wages. My dad used to go to Haldenby Hall farm at Amcotts, across the Trent from Ashby Decoy, where there was a large bell that had once been used to call workers to a room with a long table where they ate their meals. 

It seemed likely that the 1871 census would provide some of the answers, but my subs have expired. Purely to round off this post, I bought that entry only. It turns out that Joshua Blackburn was not a wildfowler or live or work at the Decoy at all. He was a farmer of 63 acres of warp land to the west of the Decoy. But he sent me off on an interesting diversion back to the days when most in the area made their living from the land.

Addendum: I am informed that the Hull Daily Mail of 26th October, 1872, reports that he was killed when a large shed he had recently built collapsed on him. 

Historic decoy near Widnes in Cheshire

Ten Years

I started this blog on 11th August, 2014, which means it has been going ten years as of today. The idea was to write a kind of autobiography covering how life has changed in England since I was little. 

The changes are many. After the war we still had ration books, bombed buildings, gas lights in the street, and Prefab houses. Later, in Leeds in the 1970s, my job took me to banks, building societies, manufacturers, merchants, shops, publishing and entertainment concerns, and businesses of all kinds that packed the city and further afield. Nearly all have gone. You could take evening classes in almost anything, and there were four or five cinemas in the city centre. The Leeds trams were no more, but sometimes I had to use the trolley buses in Bradford. 

I then went late to university, which led to a new career near the edge of the computer revolution, and saw change as it took place. I suppose I played a small part in it. I also came late to having a family, which has been great fun. I wanted to write it all down. 

There were few readers at first, but when I began to comment more on other blogs a few years ago, and chanced upon this friendly community, things began to pick up a bit. 

At times during the last two-and-a-half years I thought I would not see this day. I was as good as told it, but I am still here. The next milestones are more fruits of the garden, my birthday, and then Christmas. And then we will be into 2025 and hopefully it all comes round again. Or will it? That sounds gloomy, I know, but it is what it is, and that is all there is to it. 

It does not get easier, as my comment and response rates are beginning to show. The list of what I can no longer do, am not allowed to do, or would be stupid to try, is depressingly long. My reading difficulties make blogging slow and difficult, and I have thought of giving up, but it is one of the things that keeps me going, and I still have posts to write. I enjoy the exchange of humour, ideas, and opinions, reading what others have posted, and writing creatively. I am amazed others read it. Thank you so much, everyone.