I'm involved with a community mapping project and have been adding the locations of some of the old village wells to OpenStreetMap. So far, by using an 1861 25" OS map I've added about 20 with about another ten to go. When we moved here over 30 years ago an old boy in the village showed us where a well was in our garden and we uncovered it, but then recovered it when we'd children. Today I decided to uncover it to get some photos. According to the 1861 map we've got another under our front lawn!
Probably 18th century Jenny. I've not tasted the water. It was probably much deeper than 3.5m when first constructed, an old boy in the village told me that when our house was built in the 50s quite a bit of rubble was tipped down it. Zigs - I tried a magnet 30 odd years ago when we opened it for the first time, but magnets don't work on gold!
Interesting project Dave. Not being a particularly practical minded person, it's always puzzled and fascinated me as to how they went about building wells all those years ago. I mean, with only hand tools, ropes and pulleys available - how exactly do you excavate a very deep hole in the ground (which then starts to fill with water) and then expertly line it with bricks?
Good point Trunky. I dug one in the London Clay that was only about 8 foot deep. That didn't fill with water for a week or so. It would be a bit of a feat to dig a deeper one, as you'd be undercutting the masonry you'd already laid
A bit of research maybe Ziggy? it looks right up your street All I can think of is shoring it up as you excavate and replacing shoring section by section with masonry, as you work back up to the top? jenny
