A notice-board has the following guide to the past and present incarnations of this quite special place by the river.
The Naunton Dovecote is reputed to be 15th century in origin but sadly there is no documentary evidence to confirm this. Its architectural style suggests that it was built in the early 1600s but only dendrochronology would be able to establish this with any certainty and the tests carried out to date have been inconclusive.
Whatever its age the Naunton Dovecote is an important building, being Grade 2 listed and an Ancient Monument. It is typical of the stone-built Four Gabled style of dovecote and is particularly large, having 1,175 nestholes. Inside, the bottom tier was filled in during the Second World War to prevent the chickens, which were housed there, laying their eggs in the back of the nestholes! Most dovecotes had this adaptation made when brown rats became a pest around 1750.
 |
| Nestholes |
There are 903 open nestholes now form the basis of a nesthole sponsorship scheme. Donors who have made gifts to help purchase and restore the building. Additionally, friends of the Naunton Dovecote Trust have sponsored some of the nestholes inside the building.
 |
| View on arrival |
Ownership of a dovecote was limited to a privileged few in earlier times: in this case to the Lord of the Manor of Naunton. The young “quabs” were farmed as a luxury meat for the table and their by-products (known as guano) were considered the finest fertilizer known at the time.
A dovecote was also something of a status symbol for the Lord of the manor and so tended to be in a prominent position and built to the highest standards of the day.
In those days also, the pigeons feasted freely on the surrounding crops - whether or not they belong to the Lord of the Manor. This caused hardship and bad feeling among the peasant classes.
The Naunton Dovecote is unusual in that it lies in a Valley by a river and is, fortunately for the general public, visible from all around. Dovecotes were normally built on prominent ground so that the pigeons could keep an eye out for predatory hawks.
The Louvre or Lantern at the top of the building was designed to allow the Doves in and out, but not the hawks, who could not negotiate the vertical flight pattern needed to enter and leave. The Louvre of the Naunton Dovecote was redesigned when it was restored in 2001 as there were no visual images remaining of the original arrangements.
When corn became very expensive 1794 to 1918 the dovecotes fell into disuse and many of the 20,000 dovecotes originally recorded in Britain fell down or lost their original features by conversion to other uses.
Not so the Naunton dovecote which, because it lay by a river, was converted to a mill for grinding corn for animal feed. The door was moved from the east elevation facing the manor to the South a window or doorway was built in the North elevation and a 1 storey extension on the South side covering the door was built. It was dug from the river into the Western side of the mill and the large wheel was driven by the force of the water.
The most recent project, completed in July 2018, included excavating the head race where the water entered the lean-to on the Western side, and this can now be seen by visitors.
in 1952 due to a decrease in the volume of river flow and thus pressure, the wheel was removed and the dovecote was used to house cattlemen's chickens and pigs for general agricultural purposes.
The currently ruined turbine house by the sluice was built in 1929 to supply electricity to the Manor House. One recent project included repairing the turbine house as a ruin, removing and reinstating the turbine machinery and digging out the first section of the head race exit leat from the building. Again, visitors can now see these features which lie beyond the dovecote building by the river.
