Bracknell Mill Pond

Image: © Nigel Cox Taken: 10 Jun 2010

The pond was originally built as a floodwater storage lagoon, or balancing pond, where, in the event of a flood, water can be stored and gradually let down over a period of time in a controlled manner into the watercourse without flooding the land downstream. Some clues as to its age can be gleaned from old Ordnance Survey maps of the area. In 1881 the map shows the site was just a wooded depression, but by the time that the 1899 map was produced the pond, in more or less its current shape, had been formed. The 1881 map shows a Mill Farm at the north-eastern corner of the depression, and on the 1899 map the farm is still there at the edge of the pond, so the farm both pre-dated and post-dated the pond's construction, and probably accounts for the name of the pond as there is no evidence on any maps of an actual mill. With the growth of urban Bracknell and the discharge of surface water from roads and housing estates into the pond it rapidly became silted in the latter part of the 20th century, to the extent that its usefulness as a floodwater storage pond was becoming compromised, and it was becoming environmentally degraded. So, between 2001 and 2005, a major project was undertaken to dredge the silt, and to environmentally enhance the pond. There are full details of how this was achieved, what was done and by whom, on Pages 245 to 249 of the document linked here http://www.thegreenorganisation.info/PDF/CandIPages56-280.pdf

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