Near Mill Street on a path around the back of The Vicarage house, is a stone upon which is a plaque stating "Doctor's Pond".
The remainder of the plaque details that Doctor's Pond is "so named after Joseph Priestley, who discovered oxygen whilst dwelling at Calne. 1772 - 1779".
This is part myth and part truth, so bare with me! (or skip to the conclusion below).
While it is true that Joseph Priestley was dwelling at Calne when he discovered the gas that would later become known as oxygen (and I will refer to as oxygen), the experiments he performed to discover this gas were not performed at Calne. We shall splilt this into 2 sections: Location of Experiments and Location of Residence in Calne.
Location of Experiments
Rather the experiments were performed over a period of nearly a year, firstly at Bowood and then in London:
1774: 1 August at his laboratory at Bowood House. Priestley first discovered oxygen and found that 'a candle burned in this air with a remarkably vigorous flame'
[1].
1775: February/March at his laboratory at Shelburne House, London. Priestley continued his experiments and began to realise the importance of the discovery as it could be breathed, even writing that at some point in the future, pure air might become a fashionable luxury. His findings were read at the Royal Society on 23 March, 1775, followed by a paper in the Royal Society's scientific journal titled "An Account of further Discoveries in Air"
[3].
(There were some prior experiments, but Priestley did not recognise oxygen at this point)
It is frustrating that many sources continue to refer to Doctor's Pond
as the place where Priestley discovered oxygen or collected samples for
the oxygen experiments. Even if the timeline had been correct, a lake
had been installed at Bowood between 1762-1768
[4]:
atleast 6 years before Priestley first recognised that the air he had
discovered was important. So, why would Priestley take water from Calne
and travel for close to 3 miles to Bowood House for his experiments,
when he could just walk a 100 or so metres and collect it from the lake
or other water sources at Bowood? Any scientist worth their salt would
try to make the experiments as identical and variable-free as possible:
water from the closest available place, Bowood, would help with that.
Location of Residence in Calne
During this time, when Lord Shelburne was in Wiltshire, Priestley would live with his family at what is now 'Priestley House'. It wasn't until July 1775 that the Priestley family moved into Parsonage House - now The Vicarage, Mill Street, and Grade II listed
[5]. When he moved into Parsonage House, a pond was installed and he finally had a laboratory at home, prior to this Priestley had only two labs: Bowood, and Shelburne House in London.
So, Priestley had discovered and published before moving into Parsonage House. It is the pond that existed at the time of Priestley, and that probably became referred to as 'Doctor's Pond' as it came known in the local pubs. Locals could see Priestley collecting samples for further experiments in this pond, but it wasn't samples that discovered oxygen - instead he was collecting methane.
This pond no longer exists. In a 2013 letter to The Times, the person linving in The Vicarage, advises that the pond is under the co-op car park
[2]. Perhaps it is, or perhaps it was just backfilled and within the garden of The Vicarage as I'm not sure why a pond would be required on the far side of the river - but I can see the logic of a pond closer to the house than the river would have been.
Additionally Priestley arrived at Calne around June 1773 and left Calne for Birmingham in August 1780, not 1772-1779 as written on the plaque.
In conclusion, the area known as Doctor's Pond is named after Priestley. It was known as Doctor's Pond during his time living at Parsonage House (now The Vicarage) and has continued to be known as this - all the while building the myth of oxygen being discovered there. The plaque is written sensibly, it says that Priestley discovered oxygen while residing at Calne - this is entirely true. The placement of the plaque is also as close to the, now infilled, pond as it could be.
Perhaps it's time for a more detailed information board next to the plaque that could provide an accurate timeline of the discovery of oxygen and the locations of these ever so important experiments.
To discover more about the place names of Calne, buy the book:
References
[1] Beale, N., 2008. Joseph Priestley in Calne. 1st ed. Salisbury: The Hobnob Press.
[2] The Times. 2019. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-doctors-pond-0t7grnxbms0. [Accessed 13 January 2019].
[3] Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air - Wikipedia. 2019. Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air - Wikipedia. [ONLINE] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiments_and_Observations_on_Different_Kinds_of_Air#Discovery_of_oxygen. [Accessed 13 January 2019].
[4] Bowood - Garden | Capability Brown. 2019. Bowood - Garden | Capability Brown. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.capabilitybrown.org/garden/bowood. [Accessed 13 January 2019].
[5] THE VICARAGE, Calne - 1247332 | Historic England. 2019. THE VICARAGE, Calne - 1247332 | Historic England. [ONLINE] Available at: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1247332. [Accessed 13 January 2019].
