Page 123 HISTORY OF DECOYS.

HISTORY OF DECOYS.

When the Friskney Marshes were drained at the beginning of the present century, this Decoy, with its fellows in the adjoining parishes, suffered considerably. Doubtless this fact prompted the removal of the old Decoyman Skelton and his family to Norfolk, as a more suitable county in which to pursue his avocation of catching wildfowl. When old George Skelton left Friskney in 1807, his sons William and Henry worked the Decoy till 1845. On William, at that date, moving to Combe Abbey, Lord Craven's scat in Warwickshire, his son, John Skelton, managed it for Captain Hopkins, and, as stated, continued to do so till 1860. In Oldfield's "History of Wainfleet," 1829, P. 180 a capital description is given of the Decoys at Friskney, and in the adjoining parish of Wainfleet St. Mary's. It runs as follows:- "Great as are the advantages arising from the enclosure and drainage, they have in some measure been counterbalanced, as it respects the parish of Wainfleet, by the loss sustained by the Decoys, and the almost total failure of the cranberry harvest. Friskney was at one time noted for the number and magnitude of its Decoys, and for the immense number of wildfowl caught in them. London was at that period principally supplied with Duck, Wigeon, and Teal from the Decoys in this neighbourhood. "In one season, a few winters prior to the enclosure of the Fens (1809) ten Decoys, five of which were in the parish of Wainfleet, furnished the astonishing number of 31,200 wildfowl for the markets of the Metropolis. Since the enclosure, the number caught has been comparatively small. Only three Decoys remain, two in Friskney (the other Decoy in Friskney was the property of the Ward family), and one in Wainfleet St. Mary's and the Decoymen consider 5,000 birds as a good season." In this parish, besides the above, there were formerly four Decoys, within a very short distance of each other, owned by T. and J. Williams, Richard Skelton, and Thomas Dodds (two), respectively, of which the one above described, and owned by George Skelton, was the most northern. Hagnaby.-In this parish there was one Decoy, owned by Thomas Dowse. Wainfleet St. Mary's, a parish between Hagnaby and Friskney, in which two Decoys existed, owned by William Bell and Daniel Maidens.