Up until the 60s there was a pond in Cosgrove, used for watering cattle and for the delight of small boys in the village. We have no photographs yet of the original pond, but John Holman, Dennis Tompkins and John Shervington remember it well.

Cowmen from the neighbouring farms would bring cattle along Yardley Road on their way to be milked, and would stop to let them drink at the pond before walking up to Crowder’s, Elms’ and what was then Maycocks’ milking parlours. People in 2014 remember taking cans up to these small dairies and buying milk and butter. There were no household fridges so this was a regular arrangement, which stopped after the Second World War as Health and Safety Regulations took hold. The small farms were sold for building land as Mansel Close and Manor Close were built.

There was quite a lot of wildlife around the pond, including ducks and moorhens. Bertie Whitehouse fell in the pond one day when he was after a moorhens’ nest. The lady he lived with, Mrs Fountain, accused both John Shervington (who got a thick ear for it) and John Holman, of leading Bertie astray and pushing him in. John Shervington retorted that he hadn’t pushed him in – but he might now!

In the coldest weather, the pond froze over, and the children went onto the edges despite many warnings, until they could hear the ice cracking under their feet.

The pond was where the entrance to Manor Close is now – it was filled in during 1954 when the Close was built. At first, the backfilled pond was grassed over, but the spring that fed it kept the grass waterlogged and later the area had to be asphalted.