Frances Weeks, of Herefordshire Wildlife Trust, explains why certain ponds in Herefordshire are legacies from the days when mammoths roamed the countryside
IT is hard to imagine the Herefordshire countryside as it was during the last Ice Age when huge icy glaciers flowed down from the mountains of Wales reaching as far as Leominster and Hereford.
Then, mammoths and bison roamed the countryside while Ice Age man sharpened tools in the safety of a cave, warmed by fires and animal furs.
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These glaciers, slowly sliding through Herefordshire more than 25,000 years ago left a surprising legacy.
The retreating ice did not melt away to simply leave a flat plain, it left debris of rocks and pockets of ice which today have been smoothed to humps and bumps still visible in many fields.
The Lawn Pool at Moccas Park, Herefordshire, an Ice Age Pond. Picture: Kath Beasley/Herefordshire Wildlife Trust
But, most excitingly, in places, blocks of ice trapped below the surface debris, melted and created networks of small and large ponds throughout the landscape.
That’s exciting because it means there are ponds in north-west Herefordshire that are more than 20,000 years old.
That’s older than Bronze Age barrows, Roman roads or black and white houses.
It is living history too, as these ponds are full of wildlife – often the same species that have lived in these ponds for thousands of years: the descendants of pre-historic plants and animals!
Because most pond life, from plants to newts, can’t travel very far by itself, it can take a long time for a pond to become home to many species.
So ponds this old are fantastic because they are so full of different flora and fauna that has found its way there over thousands of years – and often quite rare species.
Water beetle Graphoderus cinereus, is only found in three other known locations aside from an Ice Age pond in Moccas Park, Herefordshire. Picture: Will Watson/Herefordshire Wildlife Trust
Tubular water-dropwort has pretty white flowers but, in Herefordshire, is only found in these Ice Age ponds, while a rare water beetle, Graphoderus cinereus, with its eye-catching yellow stripe, is only known in three other locations aside from a pond in Moccas Park, near Hereford!
However, Herefordshire’s Ice Age ponds are terribly at risk. Over time, many have become overgrown and dried up, others have been filled in when we stopped using ponds for watering livestock and they became unnecessary and in the way within our modern landscape.
Luckily, many people now know the importance of ponds for wildlife, so this was the perfect time for staff and volunteers from Herefordshire Wildlife Trust, Herefordshire Amphibian and Reptile Trust and Herefordshire and Worcestershire Earth Heritage Trust to join forces to identify and restore as many of these historic ponds as possible.
Starting in 2019, teams have been scouring maps and fields to spot damp areas and indentations which may be clues to the location of former ponds, or ‘ghost ponds’ as well as surveying existing ponds for Ice Age indicators.
Currently, there are about 60 ponds being surveyed by the fantastic Ice Age Pond volunteers. This involves going out into the field and recording geological and ecological aspects of the ponds, including a quick pond dip!
Pond-dipping has proved a firm favourite and children have loved seeing what they could find at our Ice Age pond family days over the summer.
The next step is to start restoring ponds. Ghost ponds can be restored because, beneath the top soil, ancient seeds remain which have been patiently waiting for maybe hundreds of years to germinate!
As the pond vegetation starts to regenerate, so amphibians such as newts and frogs will find their way to the pond, as well as pond invertebrates such as dragonflies, water beetles and pond snails.
Splashing for leeches in one of Herefordshire's Ice Age ponds. Picture: Will Watson/Herefordshire Wildlife Trust
Coming up, there is even more surveying on the cards, with a grand search for the illusive and extremely rare medicinal leech.
The project has teamed up with the Freshwater Habitats Trust to test the ponds for eDNA traces of the leech in the water, as well as using the old-fashioned way, which involves a fair amount of splashing!
You can visit an Ice Age pond today. Two great examples are the pond at Birches Farm nature reserve near Kington and at the Sturts nature reserve near Kinnersley.
Both are open to the public daily from dawn to dusk. For a truly interactive tour, try the brand-new Ice Age Ponds app (search for IceAgePonds in your usual app store) which will take you on walks through the prehistoric landscape – there’s even the option to take an Ice Age selfie!
To find out more about the project, the Hereford Ice Age Trail, the ponds we’re restoring and the app head to: www.herefordshirewt.org/iceageponds
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