More information : A number of elaborate ponds or water features centred at TQ 7852 2560
are part of a designed garden or landscape setting which has Bodiam
Castle and its moat (TQ 72 NE 1) as its centrepiece. An earthwork
known as the Gun Garden (TQ 72 NE 3) on the hillside north of the
castle is a garden terrace or viewing platform for the contrived
vista of castle surrounded by water below. All the garden features
now lie within the modern parkland setting around the castle.
The ponds principally lie north-west, north-east and south of the
moat. Two ponds lie in an existing valley north-west of the moat and
appear to have been constructed by deepening the valley bottom. The
eastern pond is some 50m long by 20m-25m wide; it is internally wet
underfoot and overgrown with rushes. Its western end is formed by a
scarp up to 1.8m high which separates it from a second somewhat
longer but narrower pond to the west; although this scarp has been
accentuated by recent bulldozing in the upper (western) pond (1a), it
nevertheless appears to be an original feature and may represent a
cascade or weir. The upper pond is less clearly defined as a result
of this modern earthmoving and draining. Both ponds have traces of
terracing to north and south. A further pond lies immediately east of
the north-east corner of the moat. It measures some 70m by 30m, and
is defined to the south and east by dams holding the water against
the slope, although the eastern dam is badly disturbed and the pond
has been partly infilled from the north. The feature is currently
marshy at its south end and drains through the south dam only.
Further water features flank the south side of the moat. These
include the mill pond known as the Tiltyard which seems at some time
to have been included as part of the watery setting around the castle
even if it was not originally designed as an integral part of it (see
TQ 72 NE 26). Another, small, badly disturbed pond lies immediately
north of the (truncated) east end of the mill pond. Four parallel
scarps lie 20m-25m apart between this pond and the moat and at right
angles to both; they would thus appear ornamental, but are too
fragmentary to be more specifically interpreted. The original
approach to the castle would seem to have been via the causeway
across the Tiltyard and then around the east and north edges of the
moat and back south a short way to the site of the original
bridgehead across the moat (see TQ 72 NE 1). The approaching visitor
would thus have enjoyed fine views of the castle across large
expanses of water at all points, with further ponds to east and west
perhaps intended chiefly to be seen from the Gun Garden to the north.
Such contrivance would normally be expected to date from the late
16th or 17th centuries, but the lack of documentary evidence for
Bodiam as a major residence at this time plus other evidence (see TQ
72 NE 1) might favour a medieval date for the design.
Earthworks surveyed by RCHME at 1:1000 scale; for further details see
plans, level 3 descriptive text and other archive available in the
NMR. (1) |