Concern is growing for public safety after reports of Wythering Pond changing location during the night.
Observer readers will recall that the pond was stolen last January and later discovered concealed in a toilet cistern. Since its reinstallation, the decorative body of water, which also serves as the village roundabout, has become displaced on more than one occasion.
“There was this sudden banging when the missus and I were in bed,” said Graham Sturbridge, landlord of the nearby Rising Sun.
“One night last week, it was. When I went down to check, I found the front door wide open, an empty beer barrel rolling about in the Saloon Bar and water all over the floor.”
The following morning, astonished villagers noticed that the pond was several feet to the left of its usual position and tilted at an angle, requiring drivers approaching from the Wythering Road to lean over in their vehicles and negotiate it on two wheels.
Subsequent samples analysed by the Wythering Association for Sober Ponds (WASPs) showed the water to have an abnormally high alcohol content and four of its resident moorhens to be suffering with hangovers.
Last Friday morning, workmen arriving to perform routine maintenance on the duck house were alarmed to find no trace of the pond whatsoever. It was eventually tracked down to the graveyard of Wythering Church, where it had become wedged behind several headstones.
“It was pretty clear to us that the job wasn’t done right in the first place,” said maintenance operative Bob D. Bilder, “not all of the nuts had been properly tightened up and traffic vibration had caused them to come loose. That’s probably why it’s been moving about.”
When asked if he and his team could fix it, Mr Bilder replied: “Yes, we can.”
Despite several requests by the Observer, nobody at the Ponds and Assorted Small Bodies of Water Department of Froghill District Council was available for interview.
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