I am sure that the clean-up of the Castle Pool, soon to take place, will be worth the wait, so the view from Cantilupe Street down to the Fosse will no longer be spoilt by the debris in the foreground.

However, the headline about when the Castle Pool was last cleaned is actually misleading and behind it is a more complicated story.

From 1752 until 1822 the Society of Tempers rented the Castle Green from the County Magistrates, in whom the ownership was vested. During this time the Castle Green was landscaped and assumed its present form.

Various members of the Society of Tempers also rented from the city authorities, no doubt on behalf of the society, the Castle Pool and the area which is now Cantilupe Gardens.

After the society decided not to renew the lease in 1822, a committee of prominent local citizens was set up in 1824, under then Mayor Dr John Bleek Lye, to take over the Castle Green and Castle Pool.

By July 1824 a start had been made in cleaning out the Castle Pool, the dredgings being sold for fertiliser at 1s. per cart load, and accounts published the following year show that nearly 1,000 cart-loads had been sold.

No doubt this was good fertiliser as many drains emptied into the town ditch, which circled the walls, filled the mill pond to the east of Castle Green and then discharged into the Wye. Some would have been carried into the Castle Pool as there was, at that time, a drain at the west end.

The state of the mill pond and the Castle Pool was commented on in Rammell's 1853 Public Health report on Hereford. In the context of the mill pond, Dr Bull stated it was cleaned out about nine years previously, ie about 1844.

It has been assumed the Castle Pool was cleaned out at the same time, but it will need to be checked.

After the committee gave up in 1873, the magistrates leased the Castle Green to the town council for 200 years at an annual peppercorn rent of £1, on the condition that at least £20 was spent on the maintenance of Castle Green each year.

Would that it was only that now! Accounts of the Castle Green Committee set up by the town council show that in the financial year 1887-8, out of a total expenditure of £277 10s. 5d. by the committee, £104 had been spent on cleaning out the Castle Pool. At the time this was quite a lot of money, and implies a substantial amount of work. This work was carried out on the Castle Pool alone, as the mill pond was filled in after the 1854 Hereford Improvement Act, when the town ditch which supplied it and the Castle Pool was culverted.

I do not know if the Castle Pool has been cleaned out since but, as it was cleaned in 1824-5, possibly in 1844, and again in 1887-8, I suspect little will be found in the way of archaeology during the present operation. However, if anything interesting does happen to be found I am sure it will be reported in your pages.

John C Eisel,

Lugg View Close, Hereford.