Pond Life - an Exhibition at Histon Library
Not in this case an exhibition about frogs, toads and newts, but of human life, lived near a pond in Histon and as reflected in the artefacts found discarded in the pond.
If you have an interest in the bygones of village life, then this exhibition of the curios, found last autumn at the bottom of the East Pond on the Croft Close Set-aside (CCSA), is for you.
Histon & Impington Green Spaces was carrying out a dredging exercise to help reduce the likelihood of the pond drying out in summer – for the sake of the wildlife – and the Histon & Impington Archaeology Group (HIAG) collaborated in the work. Their labours were of great assistance in the dredging!
Alas, no ancient pottery or votive sword offerings were found. However, 17 of the found objects are on display along with the results of some fascinating research. At first glance they are a random selection of refuse, mostly Victorian, some earlier and some later. But after a good clean of the black slime encrusting them, we thought that some of the stories behind the objects might be of interest to all ages.
The items vary from the remains of a fashionable ladies Victorian or Edwardian boot – but fitted with hobnails! – to an open-hearth cast-iron cooking pot found in four large pieces and now reassembled. These pots were handed down the generations until they finally cracked. John Bull garage on Station Road on the current garage site sold motor engine oil in tall glass bottles – we found one inscribed ‘Essolube’ marketed in the UK from the 1930s. We have a photograph of the garage from the 1940s showing similar bottles for sale.
The stories behind the objects bring to life Victorian entrepreneurs, for example the Sheffield metal worker James Chesterman, who invented everything to do with modern tape measures. An Airfix model aeroplane reminds us of this once hugely popular hobby. It is also tempting to imagine why there might be ammunition from a .38 calibre revolver, popular as sidearms for British and American officers in the 20th century. The exhibition includes a shard from a Victorian ceramic hot water bottle, and one of green glazed Border Ware popular in the 16th and 17th centuries in southern England and also exported in quantity to the North American ‘colonies’. And there is more!
We hope you enjoy the exhibition, and perhaps think further about similar items that you or a family member may have at home – or thrown away! HIAG would welcome feedback.
Thanks go to the volunteers of Abbey Fields and HIAG who collaborated on this project and to the library for the loan of the display space from now until Christmas.
Arnold Fertig
September 2023