New Life for an Ancient Custom
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SANDRA LAWRENCE
Perhaps it was the swinging ’60s and folk music that did it. Perhaps it was a realization that in our clamor for modernity we were losing something important to our heritage. Perhaps it was just a fundamental human need to go back to the land. Whatever the cause, the last few decades have seen a resurgence of ancient customs first eroded, then obliterated by the Industrial Revolution, two world wars and the Space Age. From cheese-rolling to Morris dancing, the past 30-odd years have seen old, often long-lost customs revived, rejuvenated and reinvented for a new age. One of the most picturesque of these customs is the dressing of the wells.
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©MARK TITTERTON/ALAMY
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SANDRA LAWRENCE
The origins of the Peak District’s well dressing custom go back so far that no one really knows how it started. Most likely a pagan rite, a sacrifice to the gods of wells and springs, the custom was adopted by the early Christian Church as thanks to God for the gift of water. It took on special significance during medieval plague times, when fresh spring water was a symbol of hope.
The earliest recorded example of the custom is at Tissington, which always dresses its six wells on the Feast of the Ascension. It was already an established rite before 1349, when medieval well dressers were giving thanks for the end of a particularly nasty bout of the Black Death. The practice got a new lease on life in the 19th century when “tap dressings” became all the rage, celebrating the coming of piped water to villages.
By the mid-20th century, well dressing survived in just a few towns. The renewed interest in traditional crafts and customs in the ’60s and ’70s, however, brought a major revival of the custom. It cannot have gone unnoticed by local tourist boards that villages that had kept the traditions also enjoyed a fair flush of visitors during their festivals. What almost certainly started out as a few sprigs of flowers by the village well or a hillside spring had, by Victorian times, taken on the elaborate form we know today.
Large wooden frames are soaked for a week, ideally in the village stream or pond, ready to be filled with wet clay, traditionally “puddled” in an old tin bath by expert adult hands and enthusiastic youngsters’ feet to get the correct consistency. Fresh flower petals, leaves, seed heads, berries, dried flowers and other natural objects, collected from the local surroundings, are then pressed into the clay by “petallers.”
It’s a fiddly, delicate skill that takes years to perfect.
If the clay is too wet, the petals fall out. Too dry and the clay cracks. The design is first pricked out into the base, and then any strong outlines are created, often formed using seeds or tiny alder cones, before being filled in. Nonperishable objects, such as bark or nuts are applied first; the petals themselves, having a very short lifespan, are added on the last day. Hands and faces can be made with eggshell, though occasionally the clay is left bare, to represent the first human, Adam, being formed from clay by God.
By the time they are finished, the frames weigh hundreds of pounds and often require the services of the local farmer and his tractor to winch them into position. The ornate designs are usually topical, religious, seasonal or depict a theme related to that particular village’s history.
Particularly good well dressings can be seen at the Derbyshire village of Eyam whose 17th-century inhabitants are still revered today. When they realized they had contracted the plague from a bolt of cloth brought from London, the people of Eyam took the extraordinary step of closing their borders to prevent the disease’s spreading, effectively sacrificing themselves for their neighbors. The villagers’ selflessness, many of whom succumbed to the disease (while the rest suffered the perhaps worse fate of watching their loved ones die), has been the theme of Eyam well dressings on several occasions.
Staying at Eyam last year, I went to the dressing at Stoney Middleton, a mile or so down the hill, advertised by the presence of copious bunting and hand-written signs on fluorescent cards at the side of the road. An ancient village of chocolate-box charm, first inhabited by the Romans, Stoney Middleton is lucky enough to have three springs, all of which have been dressed once a year for 75 years. True to local character, Stoney Middleton’s wells reflect the village’s history.
Dressers use stone, lead and leather alongside the usual flora in their frames to represent local industries. The main frame, which last year depicted Britannia, is sited close to the delightful, octagonal church. The “children’s frame,” decorated by tomorrow’s well dressers, is nearby and the fabulous, “expert frame,” as detailed as any work of fine art, is over a spring by an ancient Roman bath.
Well dressing can be found principally in Derbyshire. Each village sets aside a weekend. Dressings generally take place between late May and early September. Because of the sheer number of villages that now dress their wells, it’s likely that any given weekend will offer at least one, or perhaps several well dressings somewhere around the Peak District. If you’re driving around the Peaks in summer it won’t be long before you see a notice or two by the roadside.
The dressed wells themselves are usually accompanied by a village fete or craft sale (I found some rather wonderful cottage garden plants at Stoney Middleton’s stall), occasionally a dance and, centrally, a special church service on the same weekend. If you’re a bit early, several of the villages are happy to let visitors watch them making the pictures, and one or two will even let you have a go yourself. Expect the dressings this year to feature Royal and Olympic themes.
Ask local tourist boards for dressings on particular dates, or check www.welldressing.com.
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SANDRA LAWRENCE
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SANDRA LAWRENCE
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