York, New Walk

Well built

York’s New Walk is a tree-lined path running south along the bank of the River Ouse that was new in the 1730s. It was laid out as a recreational path, a pleasant route for visitors who fancied leaving behind for an hour or so the hustle and bustle of the city centre. In the recent heatwave, the Resident Wise Woman looked at her map and found the path and thought it would be just the route for us after a hectic morning in the city centre. The shade alone (provided by a mixture of original trees and ones planted to replace elms killed in the Dutch elm disease outbreak of the 1970s) meant that we were glad to follow in the footsteps of our 18th-century forebears.

Soon I was surprised to find a chunky stone archway set to one side of the walk. The plain semi-circular opening was set in quite rough masonry, with battered side walls and buttresses adding strength. The structure is small but somehow imposing and the roughness of surface seemed to be calculated to create this effect by someone who knew what he was doing. We’d stumbled upon a well house, originally designed by the eminent architect John Carr of York, although it’s said by some to have been wholly or partly rebuilt a few years later by the City Surveyor, Thomas Pickersgill. Whoever was responsible for the structure we can see today seems to have based the design on the grottoes commonly found in country house parks and gardens, and the masonry is said to be made up of medieval stones reused from the demolished part of a medieval church. A damaged 12th-century capital was salvaged from this material and placed as the finial in the centre of the parapet.

The well-head, locally known as the Pikeing Well (I have not seen a plausible explanation of this name), is slightly later than the New Walk itself, and was built in 1752. This was a time when spas were becoming increasingly popular – many people flocked to spas that dispensed mineral-rich waters and cities such as Bath grew rich on the income from visitors who prized the water’s healing powers. Although York has no such mineral spa, the water from the spring at New Walk did have a reputation for curing eye diseases. So the authorities commissioned Carr to build this structure over an existing well, to form a kind of spa. Inside, Carr paced steps down to a stone-lined pool, giving access to the reputedly healing liquid. Whatever the facts about the water, the well was officially closed in 1929. Only the striking well house remains.

This is the last of my current series of posts about buildings in York. I have more to say about the city, and will no doubt write more posts in the future, but variety is the spice of this blog, and regular readers may appreciate some variation in the diet. So stand by for something different, architecturally and geographically, soon.

Lee Common, Buckinghamshire

 

Wellsprings of Liberty

When I catch myself taking our water supply for granted in the face of countless communities in other parts of the world who do not have the benefit of a reliable supply of clean water, I think back to my childhood. In the village in Lincolnshire where I was born, my mother had to go to the village pump every day to collect the water we needed to drink, wash and clean. And we were lucky. Our house was called Pump Cottage because it was next to the pump – fetching the water was simply a matter of walking down the garden path and opening the gate. For my grandparents, in a still more rural location (their house was in the middle of a field), water was even nearer: a spring discharged right next to the kitchen door. But in the 1950s, neither of these households could draw water by simply turning on a tap. Universal fresh water in England is a surprisingly recent development.*

In some villages, people had to wait for a local philanthropist or benevolent landlord to come along and sink them a well. Such a man was Sir Arthur Lasenby Liberty, founder and owner of the famous Liberty & Co store in London and lord of the manor at Lee Common in Buckinghamshire. Actually, Liberty did not pay the full cost of the well, which was built by public subscription, but he was the prime mover and where he led, many others no doubt followed. Local historians will tell you how workers had to dig a shaft some 365 feet deep, using candles to light their way and a large pair of bellows borrowed from the local blacksmith to keep the shaft ventilated with fresh air.† The well is conveniently close to most of the houses in Lee Common. We stayed there a short while ago, but at the other end of the settlement, so missed the well for a few days before we stumbled on it. But it must have been a boon to villagers until it closed in the 1950s due to pollution – and the coming, one hopes, of piped water.

The well was beneficial to the locals and a good way of celebrating Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897. It being a project spearheaded by Sir Arthur, the well house is as beautifully designed as the home furnishings he stocked in his London shop. Indeed he organised Liberty craftsmen to make its wooden structure – hexagonal, with an oak frame, a tiled pointed roof, and panels like wooden gates between the posts. In the period between 1890 and 1910, Liberty embraced the fashionable Art Nouveau style of design, and there are traces of that in the woodwork of the well house. This is clear in the beautifully cut lettering of the inscription, which extends around the structure’s six sides, telling the reader that ‘This well was built by public subscription in commemoration of Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee, Anno Domini MDCCCXCVII’. The lettering, with its ornamental letter forms, is as decorative as it is informative, reflecting the combination of elegance and utility displayed by the well house itself.§

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* And yes, I’m sure there are households in some isolated places where there’s still no mains water.

† I’m indebted to the website of The Lee, the neighbouring village in the local cluster of settlements, for this information. The depth of 365 feet seems conveniently memorable, recalling those country houses that have a room for each day of the year, but is no doubt accurate to within a foot or two.

§ The well shaft is kept covered today, but the winding machinery is still there, the well still functions, and the water is tested periodically, to ensure that if needed, it is still fit for use.

Lee Common Jubilee Well, detail of lettering

Callington, Cornwall

Well hidden

To a dedicated church-visitor like me, Cornwall is full of evidence of ancient piety. Not only are there many medieval churches, but these are often dedicated to local saints, obscure figures who are little known outside the country. There are also many holy wells, tiny structures erected near or over springs, which were built or maintained by the medieval church and whose water was said to have healing properties. One of the most beautiful of these small buildings is the Dupath well east of Callington.

It was built almost entirely of local granite – even the roof is made of granite slabs – in the early-16th century, and the shallow arch of the doorway is typical of the period. Its architecture is made more elaborate by pinnacles at each corner and the striking structure, topped by a cluster of pinnacles, above the entrance. This is a small bellcote, an unusual feature of a well house, but perhaps there because the well house performed some of the functions of a church – according to certain accounts, the building was sometimes used for baptisms. Most pilgrims came here for the water’s healing qualities, however. Inside the well house is a trough into which the water flows, suggesting that visitors might have bathed in it, rather than drinking the sacred fluid.

Holy wells were among the institutions (like monasteries and chantries) that were suppressed by Henry VIII in the 1530s. The working life of this well might therefore have been very short. But the building survived and spring water does not stop flowing at the whim of monarchs. So it may be that those who believed in the water’s healing properties (it was said to cure or ease whooping cough, for example) still came here.

Travel was slow and difficult in the Middle Ages. To get here, you’d have had to walk or possessed a horse. Even now it seems remote, and part of the charm of the place for today’s travellers is the approach and the setting. You park in a farmyard – the farmer apologised for the amount of mud in the yard and joked that there hadn’t been enough rain to wash it away. Across the yard there’s a sign and a very short track to the well, which stands against a background of trees and fields. It’s a magical spot, we might say today, and no doubt medieval believers felt it was magical too.