Got a couple of useful links to medieval pond uses in the south of England. Not sure they were promenant across the whole of Europe but ponds were definitely essential to life in Britain. Used for watering livestock thats being driven across the land, washing, soaking equipment, as fish ponds for food resource and much more. Most villages hamlets and large houses would have one by the road or in a corner of common land, many ancient farms also had and still have them.
Where natural flowing water was absent, holes were often sug and clayed to fill up with rain and ground water.
The first link looks at pond use in general, and the making of Dew ponds, on permeable rock. The rest of the site also has useful info on other landscape features (bit is somewhat anecdotal)
http://www.britishlandscape.org/reading-the-landscape/files/village-ponds.htm
This second link looks more specifically at iron works, and hammer ponds, which were uses to power water mills for iron forges in the late middle ages. Useful for anyone with iron mines nearby.
http://www.hammerpond.org.uk/History/history.htm
Wealden Hammer Pond by Michaell Codd (Art UK, and WSCC)
Where natural flowing water was absent, holes were often sug and clayed to fill up with rain and ground water.
The first link looks at pond use in general, and the making of Dew ponds, on permeable rock. The rest of the site also has useful info on other landscape features (bit is somewhat anecdotal)
http://www.britishlandscape.org/reading-the-landscape/files/village-ponds.htm
This second link looks more specifically at iron works, and hammer ponds, which were uses to power water mills for iron forges in the late middle ages. Useful for anyone with iron mines nearby.
http://www.hammerpond.org.uk/History/history.htm
Wealden Hammer Pond by Michaell Codd (Art UK, and WSCC)
