Village wells

[alan refail]

A bit of nostalgia.

When I was young we had running water at home, but I always enjoyed staying with my uncle and aunt on their farm near Blackburn (Lancashire) and going up the lane to bring buckets of drinking water from the well beside the lane. The rest of the farm water was collected rainwater or pumped from the duckpond.

How many village wells or pumps are still in existence, let alone used?

Here are some pictures of a village well near us at Pencaenewydd (End of the New Field).





It looks a bit unhealthy now, but it was once the water supply for the whole village and the water originally came out of the mouth of an elaborately carved lion's head. The supply was a gift to the village from the Williams-Ellis family, then as now local landowners.
The inscription reminds the villagers of the water cycle:

O'r Mynydd i'r Môr
O'r Môr i'r Awyr

From the Mountain to the Sea
From the Sea to the Sky.

[Clive.]

Hello alan,
My grandparents house, a bit nearer the East coast, used to have a hand pump from a bore hole...and trips there on a Saturday included pumping buckets of water to stand in the pantry ready for use the next week...latterly they could pump water for the tenants cattle but couldn't easily carry the water buckets for their own use..

The hand pump could be linked to a trough in the yard with a second linked tank at the same level in the field for the cattle...a simple balance pipe transfer system..

The hand pump was used for drinking water up to 1980...and continued in use for cattle subsequently until the property was sold in 1989?...the new owners utilised the bore but came a bit more up to date with the pumping/storage system...it is still in use.

The water was tested periodically, latterly by Anglian Water Authority..and was very different to most water in this area which gives hard white scale in the kettle etc. The water there left a soft orange iron deposit which formed in the kettle...I used to think it looked like a jellyfish in the kettle

In my grandparents day soft water for washing was collected in an open tank from ther roof of "the pig places"... galvanised corrugated sheet roof area of the pig pens...which was a redundant building in my time of knowing the property.

..and during my grandparents time there up to 1980 there was no possibility of mains water, no flush toilet/sewer drainage...no dustcart collection, no made up road, etc, etc.... and it did not go down too well when a large rates demand came in from a newly formed local authority.!!..a reduction was eventually agreed I seem to recall...
The only mod-con that arrived in the last few years of my grandparents residence was the telephone...so Mum could keep tabs on their well being...and that initially was only by walking up to the phone box at this end....it doesn't seem that long ago....'cept I have just added it up....and perhaps it is



Clive.

[alan refail]

Interesting memories, Clive.
So many things that seem "like only yesterday" turn out to be quite a way back when you do the sums.

Meanwhile here is another of our local wells - this time more of a holy well than a village well. It's on the site of a holy well of pagan or Celtic Christian origin, named for St Cybi who is reputed to have lived in this area in the 6th century. In more recent centuries the waters were supposed to cure a whole range of ailments. Even now locals are said to fill a few plastic bottles in summer. And the water is often used by local families to baptise their children.

Ffynnon Gybi 1.jpg (26.54 KiB) Viewed 2883 times

Ffynnon Gybi 2.jpg (22.43 KiB) Viewed 2883 times

[MrsL]

Fascinating thread; I don't know of any village well here, but there could well have been. There are a lot of springs about, though, in the lanes. There was also a very small mill on the river that flows through our part of the Vale, but only a couple of stones remain - I suspect the rest was used for building houses.
Will need to investigate the well situation I think, interesting research.

[alan refail]

Morning MrsL

I can't find you any Dorset village wells, but HERE are some village pumps in the county.

[richard p]

we were on well water when i was young, i can remember one sunday morning sat on top of the box over the electric pump by the well pumping the weeks water into the loft tank , waiting for it to spurt out the overflow to switch off the pump, when mother came running out shouting water was coming through the ceiling... some bxxxx insect had sealed the overflow pipe with a mix of eggs , leaves mud whatever.
the water main came in the late sixties.
the dairy farm down the road had a borehole drilled earlier this year cos the water bill was getting too large ,..funny how things go round in circles

[pongeroon]

My Fine Young Man and I both work in Malvern, and were aware that there are a couple of wells around the place. But when there was the Well Dressing festival in spring, every well in the place had wonderful decorations, and it was only then that we realised just how many there are. I can't remember the total, but it is Lots! And even one which I pass every time I go to work, and I hadn't even noticed.

[MrsL]

Morning MrsL

I can't find you any Dorset village wells, but HERE are some village pumps in the county.

Thankyou, Alan, that was kind I've seen a fair few of those ones in the flesh so to speak. I get about a bit
I'd love my own well, and do my own a well dressing ceremony. Never say never.