Harpenden, Hertfordshire

The pond on the Common

This pond used to be known as The Silver Cup Pond but I do not know where the name originated. Here was where children would sail toy boats or paddle. I have not yet come across a current photo or reference to this pond so I am wondering if it has survived health and safety strangulation. Would love to hear more about it.

Silver Cup Pond, Harpenden, Herts.

Having grown up in Harpenden I remember The Silver Cup Pond very well. Firstly, to answer the question posed, I'm sure that the pond was named after the pub that stands on the main road not far away, which in my time was the A6, in it's day the fore-runner of the M1. It is possible that the silver cup itself could have been a horse racing prize from the days when this sport could be seen taking place on the common. As well as the pond, there was also a sandpit nearby where we used to play. It was hexagonal, made of concrete, and had a short pillar in the middle, great for banging your head on! Having done the shopping, and after leaving Mary Ellen's tea rooms, where the ladies would sit drinking tea or coffee in their hats, our way home to Southdown took us not only past that pond, and the sandpit, but also the water regulating lagoons. These, our mothers assured, us were most dangerous, full of crocodiles they said, and we mustn't go near. We never did! The only use they had for us was that Miss Neil, our teacher at the school in Southdown, got tadpoles from there for us to look at. The Silver Cup Pond was great for sailing your boat in but I remember that during one of our 'sailing afternoons' my father once slipped over on the slimy bottom and got drenched. Great days, great memories.

English Villages

This restful scene of the village pond in the High Street with its magnificent trees, thatched cottages and elegant pair of swans, fell victim to the sweeping expansionism and development of the 20th century. The pond was drained and grassed over during the 1920s, as the village grew into a ‘garden town’.

Luton Photographic Memories

Railways made Victorian countryside accessible to city dwellers, and writers romanticised it so much that many moved out there. Urbanisation had begun. This was the land of town planner Ebenezer Howard’s dreams. With a gorse-clad common, walks through fields and woods and a car factory just up the road in Luton, what better place for a dream come true?

Hertfordshire Living Memories

On the third Tuesday in September, the Harpenden Statty Fair (Statute Fair) was held on the common close to the pond and the adjacent Triangle. In the late 1800s, the fair was illuminated by gas, but after the turn of the century, the steam-driven generators lit the stalls with electricity. The steam engines drew their water from the ponds. Children and young adults enjoyed the roundabouts, the cake-walk, the swings, the coconut shies and the side shows. Another fair was held on Bank Holiday Monday, and one elderly lady remembered collecting discarded ginger beer bottles to exchange for the refund of one penny after the fair had closed down for the day.