Dovecote

Dovecote or Dovecot

Dovecote’s were once scattered throughout the country side especially in Europe.  The Dovecot was used as housing for doves and pigeons.  They were built to keep doves and pigeons for food, eggs, and droppings were used as fertilizer among other things.  Because of neglect most Dovecotes’ have fallen in rune and have been demolished.  It is rare to see them outside of metropolitan areas these days.  Some cities recognizing their importance have decided to carefully preserve these beautiful structures to show to future generations.

Some of the pigeons that were used as letter carriers in the late 1800’s during war time were housed in these Dovecote’s. Pigeons played an important role in war at that time.  They were used to carry letters during the siege of Paris in 1870 and the method was so affective that the Germans tried training hawks to catch and kill them.

The Roman style dovecote is typically round with a vaulted roof of stone or tile. The small entrances were covered in lattice to provide protection from predators.  The area under the windows was typically made very smooth so that small animals could not climb in. The Romans were very clever and created elaborate systems of pipes and troughs to feed the pigeons from the outside of the structure.  The French and English dovecotes were a combination of round, square, and octagon in shape. The elaborate feeding systems in the Roman ones never made it to the English country.

Dovecot

Some dovecote’s featured large bath type basins in the center of the floor while others had smaller drinking vessels that the pigeons or doves could stick their heads in and drink.  The waste from the birds was used as fertilizer and even in tanning of skins.

Pigeons were fed by eating in the neighbors fields and this resulted in destroyed crops. the French restricted where Dovecote’s could be built.  In England it was a privilege only conferred onto the lord of a manor to own one.  To control the damage caused by pigeons laws were written that restricted everything from nesting hole sizes to the number of birds that could be kept in a flock.

To learn more:  Google has digitized a wonderful book called “A Book of Dovecotes”  by A.O.Cooke written in 1920. You can find it here