An animal pound is a place where stray livestock were impounded. Animals were kept in a dedicated enclosure, until claimed by their owners, or sold to cover the costs of impounding.

Etymology

The terms "pinfold" and "pound" are Saxon in origin. ''Pundfald'' and ''pund'' both mean an enclosure. There appears to be no difference between a pinfold and a village pound. The person in charge of the pinfold was the "pinder", giving rise to the surname ''Pinder''.

Village pound or pinfold

The village pound was a feature of most

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

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villages, and they were also found in the English colonies of North America and in

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...

. A high-walled and lockable structure served several purposes; the most common use was to hold stray sheep, pigs and cattle until they were claimed by the owners, usually for the payment of a fine or levy. The pound could be as small as or as big as and may be circular or square. Early pounds had just briar hedges, but most were built in stone or brick, making them more stock-proof. The size and shape of village pounds varies. Some are four-sided—rectangular, square and irregular—while others are circular. In size they vary from a few square metres (some square feet) to over . Pounds are known to date from the medieval period. By the 16th century most villages and townships would have had a pound. Most of what remain today would date from the 16th and 17th centuries. Some are listed buildings, but most have fallen into disrepair. Although commonest in England, there are also examples in other countries. "There was hardly a town in eighteenth-century

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

without its town pound..." The ''

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the Englis ...

County Magazine'' in 1930 stated: In some mountainous areas of northern Spain (such as

Cantabria Cantabria (, also , , Cantabrian: ) is an autonomous community in northern Spain with Santander as its capital city. It is called a ''comunidad histórica'', a historic community, in its current Statute of Autonomy. It is bordered on the east ...

Asturias Asturias (, ; ast, Asturies ), officially the Principality of Asturias ( es, Principado de Asturias; ast, Principáu d'Asturies; Galician-Asturian: ''Principao d'Asturias''), is an autonomous community in northwest Spain. It is coextensiv ...

) some similar enclosures are traditionally used to protect

beehive A beehive is an enclosed structure in which some honey bee species of the subgenus '' Apis'' live and raise their young. Though the word ''beehive'' is commonly used to describe the nest of any bee colony, scientific and professional literature ...

s from bear attacks. Milton Malsor Village Pound

Cultural references

The artist Andy Goldsworthy has produced a series of sculptures in several of the pinfolds in Cumbria."Sheepfolds & Pinfolds, Cumbrian sculpture project by Andy Goldsworthy"
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Notes

References

External links

{{Commons category, Village pounds
photos of examples of village pounds today on geographGoogle maps
aerial view of a pinfold in Hougham,

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-we ...