HISTORY OF DECOYS. | |
| Sometimes a ferret was used, but nothing equalled a good, liver-coloured dog. "'The ducks we used as Decoy ducks were always a good, dark grey in colour, ducks that would quack well. They well knew their work, and when the drives took place would go on quietly swimming about as if nothing had happened. Hard by the Oakley Hall Decoy pond was the Decoy at Mose Hall.' Mr. Smith describes with animation how this Decoy came to be discontinued, and how his and his father's occupation was at last ruined by the spite of the Decoyman at Old Mose Hall. "The two Decoymen were sworn and jealous enemies, and the one at Old Mose Hall, to annoy the other, used to buy all the assafoetida he could afford, and building it into a lump on the top of a bonfire when the wind was dead on for the rival Decoy, he used to set fire to it. To use Mr Smith's words, 'The stink then was awful, and neither man nor duck could stand it and had to leave the position in the hands of the enemy. No, that vile stuff stunk out the whole place, and finally killed my father of grief and destroyed the fine Decoy.'" Horsey island.-A large island in Hamford Water 2 miles NW. of Walton-le-Soken, on which a Decoy formerly existed, and was last worked by a man named Abraham Annis, about 50 years ago. The pool with six pipes is still to be seen; it is placed close to Walton Creek in the stone marshes, and was discontinued owing to the difficulty of supplying it with fresh water. Dovercourt Decoy, I mile E. of Ramsey, on a marsh adjoining South Hall. The outline of the pool can still be traced, though it has not been worked for 60 years. The Decoys that existed along the shore of Essex travelling north from the Colne to Harwich being now described, we will turn due west from Harwich to Manningtree, along the S. bank of the Stour estuary. At a distance from Harwich of 7 miles (W.) we come to a group of four old Decoys, all within 3 miles east of Bradfield. | |
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