Horsepond's Green

Horseponds Green is really taking shape thanks to all the volunteers that come and help at working party days and to the Suffolk & Essex Coast & Heaths National Landscape grant we received

Why not walk in and take a look? https://maps.app.goo.gl/zoD4bKHZi3N2QG3g8 Please be careful where you step, there are a few animal warrens around the pond and the far back corner. Most of them have been identified with stakes.

Horsepond Green History

The piece of land opposite Sideways Cottage, Horsepond Green, to use the name originally given, was bought for the village in 1994. It was purchased by a consortium of five neighbours for the sum of £2,500 from Olive McFarland*. Their purpose was to secure a piece of and for the quiet enjoyment of residents of the village and villages further afield. The land was to be protected in perpetuity from development of any kind. The Parish Council paid the legal costs associated with the sale and transfer of the land.

 The original consortium members were:

Martin Lewis      Sideways Cottage

The Forge            Felix Gotto

Old Barn              Peter Tye

Millwood             John Burge

Soundings           John Dunham

Each paid equally towards the cost.

There is a restrictive covenant on the land that requires it not to be used for any other purpose than as a green, open space with pond, trees, shrubs and flowers. It is not to be built on, used as a car park, allowed to be used as a playground or sports ground. It is never to be sold to a third party. The restrictive covenant is vested in the five properties and runs with the land not the owners. Woolverstone Prish Council is responsible for the upkeep of Horsepond Green on behalf of the village.

The pond is not fed by a spring but by run off of water from the road. It was formed at a natural drainage point. The water passes through a filter system before it enters the pond. This means that in dry weather the water level can drop considerably. In years gone by, this had been a good wating place for horses awaiting shoeing at the forge and is marked on early maps.

There are a variety of trees, some remainders from the time the land was part of the allotment provision in the village, for example veteran Pear and Crab Apple trees. One part running up the side of Glebe Field, the other running along the B1456 to No 23 Main Road, where The Soundings is now. There is also the splendid accession oak, planted to mark the purchase of the land.

*Olive McFarland was an actress on TV and Cinema screens between 1950s and 1970s. She once starred alongside Sean Connery in “The Frightened City”. She was killed on a level crossing in Needham Market, aged 82, in 2011. Olive McFarland had bought land in Woolverstone on which The Soundings was built.