Question of 18th May 2007

• I will be moving to send in the next couple of months. The house I am buying backs on to the fishing lakes. I am interested in their history. Do you know of any sources of information about them. Thanks.

  Answer of 16th June 2007

  The site in question was originally part of the unenclosed Send Heath.

  It was enclosed in 1814 as an Inclosure Award under the Send & Ripley Inclosure Act of 1803. Presumably it was subsequently used for agriculture.

  Stanley Atherton, the Woking sand and ballast merchant, opened it for mineral extraction in about 1920-21. It was the first quarry in the area to be opened after World War 1 and it signalled the beginning of the mechanical age both for transporting the material and for extracting it. A Ruston Bucyrus deiesel excavator took what were then vast scoopfuls of earth down to water level and possibly lower. Before this local sites were worked by hand and the material transported by horse and cart.

  By the time the 1934 6″ OS map (with additons in 1938) was published this site of approx 10 acres, which did not then include the 3 acre allotment site near Sandy Lane, was worked out and had trees growing on it. Athertons had by then moved to the other site between the footpath and Send Road and became even more mechanised (details can be provided if need be). After finishing their second site which was worked “wet” from the start, Athertons returned to the one behind your house (which we know as the Briar Road pit) and, using a powerful 9″ suction pipe “hoovered” up material to a depth of up to 20 feet. They also extended the pit to include the allotment site. The 1961 6″ OS map (revised to 1.11.59) shows the site fully dug and water-filled. It has since been used for fishing and is a haunt for water fowl. The great crested grebe made a particularly fine site carrying their young on their backs.

  I don’t know if they are still there.

  Most of this information comes from an article I wrote in 1981 for the Send History Society’s Journal No. 36. The Society now includes Ripley as well. Should you be interested in becoming a member when you are resident in Send, details are, or course, on the website.

  I can tell you very little about the lake’s history from the fishing point of view.

Question of 24th June 2007

• I wonder if you could shed any light on some queries which have arisen
  regarding our new proposed house purchase in Danesfield, Send Marsh.
  We have had all the environmental searches back which are extremely
  extensive and to be honest, probably far too much information to take on
  board. However, they reveal that we are within 25 m of potentially
  contaminated land (presumably from Ben Turners) and we are within 250m of a
  flood plain. This shows the extent of possible and presumably previous
  flooding and shows that the flood came up to our new back garden.
  I can't recall this land ever flooding but I do know it is very wet as I
  have been biking round the paths and there are extensive ditches etc.
  Apparently, the whole area of land we are told once belonged to the Manor
  House.
  Do you know any more about flooding problems or contamination Les?
  Any help would be gratefully received.

  Answer of 5th July 2007

  I can’t think what the potentially contaminated land within 25 metres would be. I guess it could be Ben Turners where they may have stored oil and/or diesel fuel, or there may have been backfilling with soil of uncertain origin the other side of the footpath.

  Likewise, I cannot imagine where a flood plain within 250 metres would be. The Broadmead is a flood plain but the nearest part of that would be Prews Farm or the other side of Papercourt Farm. To the best of my knowledge neither Danesfield road nor any of the gardens has been flooded, neither was Ben Turners nor the Send Manor Estate before them.

  I wonder they don’t mention potential subsidence from former sand or gravel quarries which a Solicitor raised with a friend of ours, but which has never happened in practice.

  The nearest flooding I have known is in Send Marsh Road in front of Goodgrove, Boughton Hall Cottage and the Old Keep House. Goodgrove was actually inundated in the floods of 1987(?) but I don’t think it entered the house when the road was flooded in 2000 and again a couple of years or so later.