The Swannery

Abbotsbury Swannery. Photo: Roger D Kidd, geograph, CC BY-SA 2.0.

The Swannery is thought to have been started by the monks in the 11th century. The first written record is from 1393. It is the only managed colony of mute swans in the world. Sir Giles Strangways bought it with the abbey in 1539, and it has come down through fifteen generations of the same family to the Ilchester Estate today. About 600 swans and 150 breeding pairs nest on the Fleet, the brackish lagoon behind Chesil Beach. The Decoyman's House explains the old duck decoy. Every two years the swans are rounded up by canoe to be weighed, measured and ringed. The reed beds are still cut for thatch. It is open from mid-March to the end of October. The cygnets hatch from mid-May; the feeding at noon and 4pm, the round-up and the autumn flocks are the reasons people come back.