Wells

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2 responses to “Wells”

1. 

   Colin Needham

   03/10/2025

   The First Edition Ordnance Survey (1888) shows the location of Wells in the village which were available to survey at that time. Since that time many of the wells will have been either filled-in or covered over. Mains water came to the village in 1950’s.
   My guess is that there was not a “village well” accessible to all. More likely the recorded wells served an individual house or farm or groups of houses/cottages. The right to use a shared well would probably include an obligation on the owners to share in the cost of maintaining the well. The tenant of the properties sharing the well did not have this responsibility.

   This was the case with the well which is now on our property in Chapel Street. It was shown on the earliest Deed Plan and referred to in the Deed and the following conveyances carried forward the rights of the owners of the adjoining properties to have free access providing they contributed to the maintenance costs.

   When we purchased the the property in 2003 there was no evidence of the presence of the well but when surveyed-in using the 1888 OS data the loosely infilled brick lined well was found. It was subsequently capped with a concrete slab and the legal documents relating to it were amended by agreement with the co-owners.

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2. 

   Julian Daniels

   29/10/2025

   Mill Farm, on Bradfield Road, has a well.
   My father moved to the farm in 1959 and this was his sole source of water for the 57 years that he lived there.
   He used to draw a lot of water from the well when crop spraying, the water level would soon recover the next day.
   Reggie and Joy Coleby at Colton, on the Bradfield Road, also had a well,
   I remember Reggie telling me about the time he decided to fill it in, he had thrown in rubbish including a motorcycle.
   He had started to demolish the top courses of brickwork to the well when some of the structure collapsed and this caused the loss of some of Reggies tools.

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