Doves at Dovecote - Temple Newsam, Home Farm

This photo shows a view of a dovecote with doves at the Home Farm on the Temple Newsam estate near Leeds in Yorkshire.

I am not really a fan of pigeons, although my grandfather had homing pigeons during my childhood but I do really like doves like these white ones.

It is thought that the Romans introduced the dovecote into Britain and in medievil times only nobles had the right to build dovecotes. These days I doubt that many people have a dovecote in their garden as a source of food in the form of eggs and meat. I cannot ever recall my father returning from the garden with a brace of doves for my mother to cook. That may be partly because we only had a small dovecote with a few birds living in it and also more because we kept chickens. I have on occasion eaten pigeon but they were wood pigeons not the ones seen on streets in many cities.