Decoy Pond. <1> <2> <3><4> Photo refs <5>
Monument Notification Description:
1999: The monument includes the surviving exent of a decoy pond, located in Waldegraves Holiday Park, on the south coast of Mersea Island, immediately adjacent to the sea wall.
Originally a five-piped pochard pond, the decoy now appears as a large roughly rectangular pond, measuring some 100m north west to south east and 60m north east to south west, extended at one corner. The channels or pipes are now largely infilled, but their positions can be traced on the ground as shallow depressions.
Documentary sources make it evident that this was a very seccessful pochard decoy. An account of Essex decoyin written in 1868 described it as the best known pond of its kind and documents the large number of birds taken. Its success is reflected in its long period use: constructed in the second half of the 18th century (it appears on a Chapman and Andre map of 1777) it was worked until the third quarter of the 19th century.
All modern fences and wooden access ramps are excluded from scheduling although the ground beneath is included <6> the full extent of the pond was mapped as part of the NMP <7>

Site Assessment:
1999: West Mersea Decoy is a rare example of a duck decoy that was originally designed as a pochard pond. Unlike standard duck decoys, where the birds were enticed by bogs and netted at the ends of the pipes, the pochard pond used tall flight poles with nets attached. Operated by two men, one would fire a gun to set the birds in flight, the other would pull the trigger on the poles, which would fly up. The birds, striking the nets, would fall down into bags or pockets at the bottom.
With most of its original features still intact the central pond survives well and is water-filled. The infilled piles are expected to contain the remains of the wooden and iron hoops that once supported the nets, illustrating the operation of the decoy. The sealed deposits, in addition to artifactual evidence, will also yeild environmental evidence regarding the appearance of this part of the coast at the time of the decoy's construction.
Decoys were very important and once common features of the Essex coastal landscape making a significant controbution to the marshland economy during the period 1600-1900. Documentary sorces show that West Mersea decoy was one of the most successful in the country. Dating from the late eighteenth century, the decoy was in use well into the second half of the nineteenth century and was famous for regularly catching varst numbers of birds.<6>