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Blackford Dovecote built in the 13th or 14th centuary is one of the oldest buildings on the Holnicote Estate. It is a
Scheduled Ancient Monument
Listed Grade II*
The first known mention of the Blackford dovecote was in a document mentioned it as a dovecote (culverhouse) in 1393, and so must date from the fourteenth century, or earlier.
The manor house at Blackford was destroyed by fire in 1875, the present farmhouse being buiit soon afterwards on the opposite side of the road.
The dovecote is built of Devonian sandstone with lime mortar. The walls are
4 feet thick (1.2m) and the roof is built of diminishing courses of rubble stone,
with a round hole at the apex through which the pigeons flew in and out. The
two tiers of rectangular holes in the roof interior are putlog holes, which are
construction holes for scaffolding.
There are eleven tiers of nest holes in the walls set in an irregular
chequerboard pattern, the lowest is 2.4 feet (75cm) above the sloping earth
floor. There were about 320 nest holes originally, of which 302 remain. The
others were removed when the doorway was enlarged in the nineteenth
century. The surface of the interior has been lime-washed.
All domesticated pigeons are descendants of wild blue rock doves (Columba livia). They feed mainly on seeds. They breed five or six times a year, producing a clutch of two eggs which are incubated for 17 days by both parents. The unfledged young birds are called squabs, and as they approached the age at which they would fly, the pigeon-keeper collected them from the nest holes and wrang their necks. The squabs were almost as large as adult birds, but as their flying muscles had never been used the meat was exceptionally tender. Squabs were produced mainly from April to May and August to October when other kinds of fresh meat were readily available, and they provided a luxurious supplement to the diet of the wealthy. Most gentry households relied on the squabs produced by their own dovecote.
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