This photo above shows the Dovecote on the Temple Newsam estate Home Farm, this building dates from the early 18th century and appears on Capability Brown's sketch of the estate of 1762. This building had room for 2,400 birds. Doves were a valuable source of fresh meat in the winter and were very cheap to keep as they often flew off to feed on the neighbouring tenants' land.
There were no windows in the original building; light, air and access for the birds would have been through roof lanterns. A small circular hole beneath the central arch gave access for workers to collect eggs and to clean out the droppings, a valuable fertiliser.
The photograph above shows one internal wall of the dovecote, you can see the individual perches for the birds.
I shall post more photographs from the Temple Newsam estate, Leeds over the next week.
If you visit the Temple Newsam estate you can get in free with the Leeds Card, which is a discount card from Leeds City Council.
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What an efficient building for keeping the doves! I didn't know that doves were kept for meat. I like reading about the history.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea! Thank you so much for including the history behind your photos!
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