The pond was at the lowest point of Church Hill (now the main road)
Pond Cottage was just
above the pond on the right, and possibly the first
pond, Mill Pond, was part of the South End Farm
nearby.
Church Hill or Church Street, leading from the
Square to Mill Row, was just a bridle path for
centuries until the present solid road surface was
built. The pond was marked on the 1688 manuscript
map of Birchington.
In 1622 parishioners were allowed to make a
Highway Rate and unemployed men were employed
in carrying large stones from the fields filling in the
holes. In the early nineteenth century, Men from
the local Workhouse were paid 2/- a day, with
women and children paid 1/- a load for picking up
stones from the fields and the beach.
Being in a hollow, the pond occasionally flooded
over the road at times of heavy rainfall, and in
February 1929 it was reported that “thick ice on the
Birchington Pond gave unaccustomed skating for
the children.”
During hot summers the pond would dry out and in
August, 1921 there was mud in it over four feet
deep when “for the first time in 28 years the K.C.C.
was having the Birchington Pond cleared out”.
Plans to widen the road between the pond and Park
Lane first appeared in 1926 when a London coach
driver was fined for speeding along the narrow part
of the road at the Mill Pond. The building of the
Thanet Way a few years later meant that traffic to
London no longer had to go through Canterbury.
This meant that holiday coach traffic from London
to Margate increased to such an extent that the
Canterbury Road had to be widened to its present
width.
The condition of the pond featured continually in
the early years of the 20th century. Often Parish
meetings referred to the filthy and unsanitary
condition of the pond and the County Council was
asked to “drain the pond as this appeared to be
the only solution.” The pond finally ceased to exist
in the road widening scheme of 1933. Article by Alan Kay
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