Erddig, like many other wealthy farms and estates had a dovecote, with the birds being kept both for their flesh and their eggs, both of which supplied a ready source of protein throughout the year.

In Britain dovecotes functioned as a major source of protein for 700 years. They were generally built as round or rectangular multi-storey buildings which were proofed against vermin at the lower levels, with closable apertures in the roof to give the birds access, and also an entrance and ladders to enable the owner to harvest the squabs (nestlings).

The interior would be dimly lit and the walls pierced with recessed ledges to create nesting conditions that closely mimicked those in the wild doves’ (pigeons) nesting caves.

Long considered good eating, Mrs Beeton recommended that pigeons be broiled, stewed, roasted or baked in a pie with three of their feet sticking out of the top to identify their contents. The feathers would also be gathered for use as a stuffing material, the droppings made into fertiliser and also used as an ingredient for softening leather in the tanning industry, and the guano (excrement) was known to be rich in potassium nitrate, an important ingredient of gunpowder.

Pigeons breed as many as six times a year throughout the calendar which led to them not only being the classic motif for fertility, birth and rebirth, but also as a free ranging supply of food which after a multiple harvest would quickly reproduce itself.

It was with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, and advances in agricultural methods, that this form of food production fell into desuetude.