Close to High Halstow on the vast historic marshes on the Kent side of the Thames Estuary lies a peculiar diamond-shaped pool of clear man-made origin. This is a duck shooting decoy pond constructed around the late 17th Century with signs of alteration over the following 200 years. The four channels called ‘pipes’ at either corner of the diamond were placed to lure ducks into these narrow pipes so that they were tightly-packed, when nets were dropped and the birds could be gathered up and harvested. Screens would have been erected to conceal the sportsman lying in wait. This would have been used by early wildfowlers for both leisure and food.
In our video below, you can see our drone footage of the pond:
