Agricultural History Review, Volume 53 Part 2 (2005), p. 255

Dovecotes were introduced to Britain after the Norman conquest, along with other manifestations of manorial privilege such as fishponds, deer parks and rabbit warrens. During the middle ages they were restricted to the demesne holdings of manorial lords and to parsonages, but after 1619 freeholders acquired legal rights to build dovecotes on their own land, and numbers increased. Their economic viability was effectively terminated by the French revolutionary wars of 1793–1815, when wheat prices soared. Many Board of Agriculture county reports then condemned the keeping of pigeons, claiming that the value of the corn they consumed exceeded that of the meat and manure they yielded.

By the time that dovecotes began to attract the interest of antiquarians in the 1880s most of them had long been out of use, and practical knowledge of how they worked was almost entirely forgotten. Myths about their purpose and function became perpetuated, as hypotheses formulated by early investigators were relayed uncritically by later writers.

John McCann has re-examined the evidence in several important publications since 1991, and has single-handedly demolished many of our inherited assumptions. The traditional idea that dovecotes produced fresh meat in winter when otherwise only salt meat was available is shown to be a double fallacy: fresh meat was, in fact, readily available throughout the year for those who could afford it, whereas squabs (birds up to four weeks old which were unable to fly) were not normally available between the end of November and the end of March. The picture of crops constantly being ravaged by flocks of manorial pigeons is hardly tenable in view of the inability of the pigeon to alight on standing corn. Although pigeons had to be deterred during sowing and would consume grain spilled during harvest, they were no more of a nuisance than many other birds. The view that circular dovecotes with revolving ladders represent the earliest type, while square or rectangular shapes came later, is debunked; indeed, there now seems no evidence for the use of potences before the eighteenth century.

The McCanns also recognize the significance of features overlooked by earlier writers. The blocking-up of the lower courses of nestholes is linked with the appearance of the brown rat in the later eighteenth century. Unlike the black rat, an earlier invader, which mainly consumed grain and fruit, brown rats ate eggs and attacked squabs, and, moreover, were able to enter dovecotes by burrowing and by gnawing through the edge ofdoors. However, they were unable to climb smooth vertical surfaces, and could be foiled by eliminating all nestholes less than a couple of feet from internal ground level. Further changes in practice were a consequence of the high wheat prices in 1793–1815, and of a change in the law in 1827 which gave any farmer the right to shoot pigeons damaging his crops. Attempts to reduce the sizeof pigeon flocks resulted in the blocking of even more nestholes, the lower stage of dovecotes often being converted to other uses, while open nestholes were retained only above an inserted floor. The need to keep pigeons from foraging over neighbouring fields during sowing and harvest times occasionally resulted in the installation of new internal feeding platforms.

This survey provides exemplary descriptions of all 49 dovecotes and pigeon-lofts still standing within the historic county of Somerset, plus notes on demolished examples, and on other structures which resemble dovecotes but which actually had some other purpose. Plans and elevations of ten examples are included, along with numerous excellent photographs. There is also a brief review of documentary and archaeological evidence. The 256 the agricultural gazetteer is arranged in approximate chronological order, an odd decision, given the imprecise dating of so many examples. The consequent difficulty in locating entries for individual sites is exacerbated by the lack of an index, the only significant flaw in the book.

The Somerset Vernacular Building Research Group continues to add to its impressive list of publications. This beautifully-produced volume is another valuable contribution, not just of local significance, but of relevance to anyone with an interest in manorial and agricultural buildings.