Help me find my well?

[Schoolmarm]

Our farmhouse is above a steep valley with a stream. Our well on the other hand is a few hundred meters away, on the side of the valley, so sort of sideways and half way between the stream and the top of the valley.

We have an electric pump and the water travels through alkathene, but I presume they would have used a hand pump when it was first built. Not sure what pipes were available in 1750, would it be lead?

The well is big and now has a brick building built over it.

 

[Jon Maine]

Lead pipes, and sometimes conduits made out of elm as it is durable in wet conditions ( assuming the lie of the land allows gravity feed)

 

[Schoolmarm]

No it is all below the house. They could have used something else though so I might keep my eyes open.

 

[lou]

You may have already tried this but our CO sent us copies of maps dating back a hundred years or so when there are several springs marked on the hillside around us (thinks! this is probably the cause of our damp...). Anyway, if you do try dousing it might give you somewhere to start.

 

[MdB]

Came across this today on one of the weird websites I go to. For a sceptic like me, it explains a lot... :?

(last line - Yeah, this doesn't end well for him)

 

[JoceAndChris]

8)

And once you've found your well by magic or luck Robin, here's how to decorate it:

"Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she
had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to
wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look
down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to
see anything; then she looked at the sides of the well, and
noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves;
here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She
took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed; it was
labelled `ORANGE MARMALADE', but to her great disappointment it
was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing
somebody, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she
fell past it."

I can't wait to do mine, with eery blue lighting at the top, and a lift -up glass lid, with a ladder leading down!

 

[philpjuk100]

Dowsing! did not really belive in it but many years ago I was "working" on a nightshift with a colleague who claimed to be able to dowse,I challenged him to prove it,I laid down the rules we used two bent welding rods,to prevent any influence from the hands we had them placed in a pair of bic biro bodies which were then fastened to a bit of scrap wood with cable ties to stop them being tilted.I then insisted that I would hold this and I marched up and down a large empty workshop with a concrete floor,whenever the rods crossed Keith chalked a cross on the floor,when I had finished nearly all the crosses formed a straight line and on looking outside the workshop there was a "manhole" in line with the crosses(could not check the other end as it was up against the railway)still cannot understand it but can only say it as I saw it! phil (still not convinced!)

 

[Gareth Hughes]

8)

And once you've found your well by magic or luck Robin, here's how to decorate it:

"Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she
had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to
wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look
down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to
see anything; then she looked at the sides of the well, and
noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves;
here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She
took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed; it was
labelled `ORANGE MARMALADE', but to her great disappointment it
was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing
somebody, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she
fell past it."

I can't wait to do mine, with eery blue lighting at the top, and a lift -up glass lid, with a ladder leading down!

I trust you've got Jonathan Miller's dark, extraordinary love-it-or-hate-it 1966 BBC version of "Alice"?

(Oh Lord, I'm making DVD recommendations now!)

 

[JoceAndChris]

Is there a rule to say no DVD recommendations? No, I've never seen that, so have just added it as Top Priority on the Love Film account. Thankyou! (maybe).

 

[Gareth Hughes]

A very, very, serious and detached, almost sleepwalking, Alice, surrounded by every major British acting name of the time, fantastic locations, no technicolor, no song and dance routines (score mostly splendidly atmospheric sitar music by Ravi Shankar - shades of the Raj), no animal costumes, but a langorous Victorian summer day dream nonetheless. Here's the scene you quoted above http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdWtzDaOxvY&feature=related

 

[JoceAndChris]

How beautiful is that? Looks like my kind of thing indeed - she reminds me of Blake's Lyca in "The Little Girl Lost/Found", or indeed of Pullman's Lyra...I love these vulnerable, venturesome adolescent heroines, and these explorations of what happens if you open that door, drink that potion...

Thanks Gareth, looking forward to that arriving and a spot of culture in this lonely outpost!

 

[Flyfisher]

It also made a great 'video' for Pink Floyd's 'See Emily Play', a favourite old track of mine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNWlsKtoZZM&feature=related

 

[fjpdesigns]

Filmed partly at Netley Hospital near Southampton. Sadly most of the hospital has been demolished.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netley_Hospital

 

[Gareth Hughes]

And also at Donington Hall and Rousham
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donington_Hall
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rousham_House

Rousham House is still the home of the Cottrell-Dormer family, who keep the garden and estate so uncommercialised that no book exists to guide the unwitting tourist, and no shop sells postcards or souvenirs. A visit to Rousham today is very similar to one enjoyed by a visitor in the 18th century. The gardens and buildings are superbly maintained but not manicured. The visitor is not made afraid to tread on the grass or to pause for thought on a rustic bench. In such a state a spirit of the 18th century survives at Rousham.

 

[philpjuk100]

"see emily play" great! not seen that since it was on the "whispering bob" show, phil.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Guys, I hesitate to bring the thread back from the joys of Alice and other meanderings 8) , but does anyone have any other ideas on how I might locate a former/disused well other than by dowsing? I have looked at OS maps back to 1870s but the scale is too large for anything like a domestic well to be shown.

 

[JoceAndChris]

I apologise for drifting your thread off topic and also if the following thoughts are just blindingly obvious. Is there any way it could be in the house with a floor constructed over it? Mine is in the basement, it's just a hole in the ground.

It's interesting that whilst some old wells have the traditional appearance, which presumably even if ruined would leave some kind of stony markers:

other wells are all underground with nothing to show they're there except a simple cover:

Have you found anything like the well cover in my second picture? (the well's opening was fixed up by the previous owner and that old lid consequently made redundant)

Or have you spotted any strange looking piles of stones?


How about checking all your pipes for evidence of old systems? For example here there are holes in walls and telltale signs in brickwork where pipes used to run, the system has now been updated so that the well water emerges from the taps, but I suspect it used just to emerge from a single tap in the scullery in 1800.
I suppose there are two ways of drawing water from the well, and I suppose it depends on the age of your house. Either to physically go there and winch up buckets and carry it home, or to have this well water pumped into your house - this house was constructed in the age of pumps and pipes and so the water was always taken from out of the well via these systems, and never, as far as I can see, by any medieval style of drawing up.

When did your house go on to mains water? (How does one find that out?)

If you're really determined to have your own private water supply there's always the borehole option- it's pricey though.

 

[JoceAndChris]

It occurred to me you have an extension, I wonder if your well is underneath it?

 

[Flyfisher]

Does anyone know anything about the device they use on the BBC Time Team programme to generate 'geo-phys' data when surveying hidden building foundations under fields? I guess it's some form of ground-penetrating radar system. I wonder if this sort of thing could be used to locate underground springs?

 

[MdB]

Guys, I hesitate to bring the thread back from the joys of Alice and other meanderings 8) , but does anyone have any other ideas on how I might locate a former/disused well other than by dowsing? I have looked at OS maps back to 1870s but the scale is too large for anything like a domestic well to be shown.

Do you know what the geology around your house is like? If I remember my geography lessons from school correctly, you often get a spring line where the underlying ground changes from non-porous to porous. If this is the reasons for the springs occurring where they do locally to you, you may be able to mark out in between the current springs a line that runs near to your house. I guess you would then look for lumps and bumps in the ground to identify possible spots and then get the spade out...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_line_settlement