Monument record 2457 - Decoy Pond at Orford Hall

<1> Farrer W & Brownbill J, 1906-14, The Victoria County History of the County of Lancaster, /2 1908 (Book). SCH3636.

Lancashire has never had more than the two famous decoys at....and at Orford Hall near Warrington; the latter no longer exists and the moat and the pool are both dry, but the remains of the decoy though much overgrown, can still be traced. Of this decoy unfortunately there are no records in existence

<2> Benchmark Archaeology, 2011, The Duck Decoy, Orford Lane, Orford Park, Warrington: Archaeological Watching Brief (Client Report). SCH5452.

An archaeological investigation was carried out during works to the former duck decoy at Orford Park, which form part of a wider regeneration and redevelopment of the park. The decoy has been much modified, particularly since the park came into municipal ownership in the 1930s, but the investigations did reveal evidence of an infilled channel running west from the main pond. This was, presumably, one of the channels along which wildfowl were driven into the nets. Following the abandonment of the decoy, much material had been dumped in the former channels, something the excavators interpret as associated with the demolition of Orford hall in the 1930s and the alteration of the decoy into a small pond.