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R. Stephenson-Smythe  
#41 Posted : 15 January 2011 13:49:01(UTC)
R. Stephenson-Smythe
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Mr Scope,
 
I honestly have no idea what you are on about but I would like to accept your offer of help in freeing the Well. When the weather improves a bit we shall make haste to carry out the necessary remedial works. I know how to contact you.
 
In the meantime I have found a more recent article about the trespass and further discussion of the Bings Wood Well.
The evidence is mounting, don’t you think?
 
 
 
High Peak News
 
30 May 1942
 
Whaley Bridge.
 
 
Heigho! Now that we’ve embarked on the subject of ye olde we don’t seem able to relinquish it.   
For though innovations like rose queen festivals crop up to divert the young, the older residents are faithful to the memories and experiences of yesterday (or yore, as some writers prefer to call it.)
That is why one native of the village, a septuagenarian, though to look at him you would imagine him still in the fifties, made a pilgrimage on Whit Monday to the well in the wood between the River Goyt and the Bings, and solemnly took a drink of the water.
He has made that pilgrimage annually on Whit Monday for 50 years in order to maintain the right of every inhabitant of the village to go to the well for water if he wishes to do so.
You see, children, 50 years ago Whaley Bridge had no water supply, and most of the people went to that well for their water. Then the Railway Company disputed the public’s right of way across the line.
In the local courts they won their case, but a Whaley Bridgeite, Mr Adam Morten, grandfather of Mr Harry Morten, of Greendale Farm, appealed to the high court.
For the high court hearing he took to London as witnesses five or six men and women of over 80, all of whom gave evidence that they had access to the well all their lives.
Counsel for the Railway Company was sure that he would soon confuse these old rustics, and make them seem ridiculous, to the detriment of their case.    He cross-examined one old lady sharply, and after a number of questions repeated one which he had asked earlier:   
“Nay,” retorted the old lady, “Ah’ve telled thee once, Ah’m non tellin’ thee again.”   
The lawyer soon gave up, and Mr Morten won his appeal.
At one time the Railway Company took drastic steps to prevent the Whit Monday pilgrimage to the well, which used to be made by nearly all the villagers.    For their last attempt they brought 250 men from Crewe, besides local employees, and lined the track with them from the old bridge to Proctor’s Smithy, with a truck at each end as a further safeguard.
Until the evening this railroad regiment kept the people off.    In the evening, however, the bellman went round the village calling all men and women out.    They came down in a small army, the women in front, the men behind.    Spurred on by their men folk, the women pushed themselves through the railwaymen’s ranks.    The railwaymen could scarcely attack women, and so the right of access was once again maintained.
Whaley Bridge has had its own water supply for 30 years now, and no one needs the water from the well.    But for sentimental reasons, and in memory of a gallant fight, this old inhabitant makes his pilgrimage.    We hope he has many more years left to him in which to continue its observance.
 
Now then Mr Jackson this is a newspaper report from 1942 so are you still able to pour scorn on me and this marvellous Well?
Will you still feel the need to call upon your, rapidly drying out, goldfish or your, rapidly rusting, JCB?
 
I think not. Like Adam I have proved and won my case.
 
R. S-S
Flannel  
#42 Posted : 15 January 2011 17:06:44(UTC)
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I am new to this forum although a long time lurker. Thanks to all for the entertaining stories.

I took my daughter up to find the well today, as she is hoping it might be a wishing well. Once a few leaves were kicked away the overflow channel is pretty substantial and there was water running across it. There is a penny in the water there now, although I warned here it might not work if the fairy is trapped inside the buried well.

Did any of the earlier visitors notice the metal pipe running from the top of the bank above the well wall? Could the well have been fitted with a pump at some point? The pipe runs away to the north and is buried, although it may be part of an old fence people dont tend to put substantial iron pole fences in the middle of woods.
R. Stephenson-Smythe  
#43 Posted : 16 January 2011 12:23:13(UTC)
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Good afternoon Mr Flannel,
 
Welcome to the forum and thank you for your first contribution which is yet again more evidence in my favour.
When I visited the Wood Well everything was frozen over so all I could see is what everyone else can see in the photo that I took.
Now that we are nicely thawing out it seems that the Well is indeed running and so myself, Buggyite and Mr Scope will most certainly have to pay it a visit.
I trust they will have ample supplies of humble pie with them as sustenance.
 
I am very interested in the metal pipe that you have discovered and this does merit further investigations. So as I say hopefully the three musketeers will have more information for you by next weekend.
 
As regards the possibility of Bings Wood Well being a wishing well; I am sorry to disappoint you and your daughter but I have come across no such claims since the Well became national news in 1887.
 
There was though most certainly a wishing well in Whaley Bridge. It was situated in the Memorial Park behind the War Memorial. It is not there now though; it was removed by Whaley Council some years ago. I think the reason for this was that most wishes were for the removal of the Council.
Anyway it will be in the minutes somewhere and if I get time I’ll look it up.
 
R. S-S
 
buggyite  
#44 Posted : 18 January 2011 17:22:05(UTC)
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R.S-S,

As it happens, I am not working on Friday this week, so if you are similarly under-occupied, this may be an opportune time to do some uncovering and restoration work.  Obviously, as this is not one of those events where the notice would state "If wet, to be held in the Church Hall" like garden parties of old, we are going to be dependent on the weather.

My only other concern is that this proposed activity seems just a little bit "Summer WIne-ish", so please ask G.Jackson not to bring the tin bath on wheels this time.

 

Buggyite
I am a yellow factioner!
Flannel  
#45 Posted : 18 January 2011 19:33:08(UTC)
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I would have thought a tin bath was the ideal accessory, when you open up the well and get the first flood of the restorative whaley waters, you will be able to recreate the timotei advert in the woods to advertise the new bottling plant. Who did you say own the woods again?
R. Stephenson-Smythe  
#46 Posted : 25 January 2011 13:04:35(UTC)
R. Stephenson-Smythe
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This is not quite the end of this story just yet but here is an article from (probably) The Buxton Advertiser submitted by Redfers Rawlinson; Whaley Bridge photographer and historian.
 
R. S-S

Flannel  
#47 Posted : 29 January 2011 10:52:53(UTC)
Flannel
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G. Jackson wrote:

Bings Wood stretches from Bings Farm where the telephone box is on Bings Road all the way to the old church at the end of Bings Road on Old Turns near Cowards garage.The wood belongs Bings Farm where Geoff Morten and his wife Jean live. Geoff's dad Harry sold off the part where the well was to Harold Mycock a long time ago. Harold used to be the caretaker at the Mechanic's Institute and he wanted the area to be used as a bird sanctuary which it was for many years (about 40 years ago)


I am wondering, who owns this part of the wood now? Is it still a bird sanctuary, it doesn't look like it is used for anything else.

We are thinking of having an exploratory dig, seeing as Foggy, Compo and Clegg have been distracted. It seems odd in an area famed for well dressing that this well has been abandoned like this, although it is in an awkward location for large processions to visit.

Flannel

Flannel  
#48 Posted : 29 January 2011 15:52:11(UTC)
Flannel
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Well, we made a start. It's hard to work out the original layout, but there seems to be a pit behind the paved overflow that is now full of muddy water. Under all the leaves and roots we found the remains of a broken basin. There are more buried pieces but my gloves were wet and muddy and the children wanted to go home,


Need's a bit more work to figure out how it all fitted together. As there was a basin, the water probably came out higher up originally, if anyody wants to dig a bit further it might become clearer.

Flannel attached the following image(s):
DSC01901.JPG
DSC01899.JPG
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