hammer pond

English

Etymology

From Middle English hamer, Old English hamor, and Middle English pond.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈhæm.ə(ɹ) pɒnd/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈhæm.ɚ pɑnd/

Noun

hammer pond (plural hammer ponds)

1. (historical) The millpond of an iron forge, especially in the Weald.
   • 1866, Charles Kingsley, chapter 25, in Hereward the Wake, London: Nelson, page 342:

     [T]hroughout the Southern Weald, from Hastings to Hind-head, every copse glared with charcoal-heaps, every glen was burrowed with iron diggings, every hammer-pond stamped and gurgled night and day, smelting and forging English iron[.]

   • 2009, Clive Chatters, “The Enclosed Countryside”, in Flowers of the Forest: Plants and People in the New Forest National Park, volume 52, Princeton University Press, pages 190-207:

     In later years the waters were converted into a hammer pond to power the furnaces and hammers of an ironworks.

Related terms

• hammer wood