Anyone know anything about.........

[cee-dee]

Eel traps?

When I was a kid, my grandparens lived in the middle of a country estate and not far away was a most beautiful lake and walking round it we pased "the Eel Trap".

It seemed to be a brick structure and was quite deep but how did it work?

Was what was left there the actual trap or was it some place where wicker traps of some sort were placed?

Anyone know how it might have operated?

[right-then-petal]

I Just Google it CD both Web And Pics Have A Peek There Are A Few Ways To Catch Em

[cee-dee]

Yeah, but that throws up loadsa info about everything except what I wanna know.

[jd.linklater]

I remember people eel trapping when I was a kid. The traps were wire mesh but traditionally they were made of willow and were designed like a narrow lobster pot. If you look at the first picture in this article from the Fish Museum, it shows a structure built in the water to tether the traps to I suppose to stop them drifting away. Can't think what the brickwork was for that you mention, unless perhaps poles were laid across the top of two brick walls to tether the pots.

http://www.fishingmuseum.org.uk/eel_bucks.html

[fallen-archie]

Never heard of a brick built Eel trap, most I have seen are wooden structures in which you placed a wicker basket, however I have heard of brick built wells adjacent to lakes which had a couple of uses mainly as a source of cooking water, folklore has it that these wells when dipped with a water pot often produced an eel and that when that happened water would never boil. Of course that particular tale is nonsense however Eels do cross land to get to a lake or pond and spend a few years there brfore going off to breed. It would be quite easy for an eel to be attracted to a well near a lake and to become trapped within it, my guess is that might be the source of the name.

[suzieseaside]

The brick one would have the water level controlled by a sluice gate and the eels would be stranded on something like an iron grid, or perhaps just trapped in the shallow water once the water level had been reduced.

[right-then-petal]

That Sounds Like It

[cee-dee]

Ah-ha, thank you, I see. As kids, we always scooted past it because not only was the path on a steep embankment, the "trap" was close to the path there.

Although the lake was in a natural depression, it had been increased in area (and depth) by the building of two embankments on one side so that the estate could release water to power a sawmill.

There was no flow of water in to the lake, although it had a major brook outfall, an overflow to another brook, the leakage from the sawmill sluices (which formed another small brook) and some sort of outfall at the eel trap, I guess the source of the water was surface run off and springs.

[suzieseaside]

I imagine that permanent brick eel traps were pretty rare. 

They would have to be drained, so would only be in places where there were sluices to regulate the flow, perhaps around mills or similar. 

I wonder if the one you used to cycle past is a listed structure now.  Have you ever been back to see if it still exists?

[cee-dee]

We didn't cycle past it, we ran (scooted) bucause we thought it was creepy/dangerous.

The lake is still there but I've not been back there since about 1970.

I'm told the estate has lowered the water level because they're afraid of the long embankment breaking and looking at the satellite images, it looks like the lilies have taken over.

The estate is about 17,000 acres and one of the other lakes has been drained and the area is coverd with trees and bushes now.

I don't suppose it's listed, few people will know about it and it's way off the beaten track. The estate had several Country Houses, a few have "gone", others have been reduced in size and all had interesting features near them. The drained lake also had a sawmill at the deep end but that had a brook flowing in to it which still flows of course.

The house near the beautiful lake had an ice house in the middle of a small wood. Down the bank from there was the brook outfall where there were withy beds which were used for basket-making etc, all grown up now. There was a spring in amongst the withy beds with lovely cold water and round about superb Watercress. Happy days.