Dovecotes

By admin, March 14th, 2010 | Randomness | 0 Comments

Bet you don’t know that, back in the day, a licence was required to have one. The reason was their ‘droppings’ – to be polite. Once a year these were collected, like taxes, by the State to be used as a constituent of ‘saltpetre’ (gunpowder).  Doves, and later pidgeons, were kept for their meat and feathers but their droppings were far more important. Amusing to think that the ingenuity of us Brits allowed us to have large stocks of gunpowder because we kept loads of pidgeons. (Made Rider remember, when doing research for the village school history, coming across an entry during WWI, about collecting fruit stones and nut shells to be sent to the Gas Works at Southend on Sea. Presumably these were to be used as fuel to produce gas!) Later, when Britain acquired places like the West Indies where there was a big source of guano, then the importance of collecting pidgeon droppings ceased and you no longer needed a licence to have a dove cote.  Random musing…. instead of using sh.t cultivate ‘guano’ …. so much more refined