Standish Well Excavation
At the last meeting I mentioned that the society had been asked to carry out an excavation on the site of the old Standish well. The time scale was tight but we managed to muster the necessary willing hands and the work was successfully carried out a week last Sunday and apparently to everybody's satisfaction. Here's the story.
Canopy
Over the last few years money has been donated to replace the well canopy that was destroyed by an American Army lorry in the 2nd World War. (The lorry was part of a convoy travelling from Chorley to Burton Wood when it got lost and took the wrong turning coming up Rectory Lane, ripping off the canopy roof.)
Eventually an opportunity came through the Civic Trust, to build the new canopy and so it was decided last month to try to have it ready for Lancashire day, which was on the 27th November. The destroyed canopy in actual fact was not the original. A new one had been built during the restoration work carried out in 1930 when the row of terraced houses in front of the church were demolished. Apparently there had been a canopy before that in the 19th century, but whether there has always been a canopy over the well is not certain. Initially, the idea was just to have the structure on the site over the plaque that indicated the position of the filled in well. Once work had began, however, it was soon realised that it would be a much better to have the actual well itself exposed. So Councillor John O'Neal, who was co-ordinating the work, contacted Robina McNeal of Manchester Archaeology Unit who in turn contacted us. As it turned out the canopy builders were lucky, just a foot out of alignment on one side and a couple of inches on the other.
The Well
The actual well itself only occupies about half of the covered area and is about 1.5 metres deep. It is of the walk in variety with steps leading in from the west side. Only the bottom 2 of these steps could be exposed, as the rest had been blocked off by masonry, presumably when the well was closed last century. Fear of cholera had forced the town council to abandon the well and introduce piped water from Rivington instead, which was installed in 1892.
At the bottom of the well is a large shallow stone trough with a drainage hole to the right. This may have had a plug to allow it to fill with water. The stone walling leading down to the trough is angled at about 45 degrees and has been pointed with good quality mortar, the whole structure had obviously been properly maintained. A strange looking sculptured stone protrudes from the angled face and must have had some large iron feature attached. This was probably where the water emerged, although there is also a 7cm diameter iron pipe protruding about 3cm on the bottom right hand side of the same wall.
Excavation
Having cleared the well area we decided to take the opportunity to look at the rest of the covered area. The conditions here were much more difficult but we soon came across a square brick structure, which turned out to be a kind of sump. It was 70cm deep and 90cm square and had 2 iron pipes extending through the brick work near the top. One pipe seemed to lead towards the well while the other lead off from the side wall at 45 degrees under the road. The structure was stone lined and had an opening at the bottom which began to fill with water when it was unblocked. We though we had hit the original spring but it only filled to a few cm's. The area around the sump was full of rubble from the time of its construction, but an area in the far corner looked more promising from an archaeological point of view. Under about 70cm of rubble we came across an undisturbed surface of compacted pebbles, but unfortunately the area was too small to investigate any further. The whole of this side has now been back filled and flagged over in readiness for the official opening day this Friday.
Next Meeting
The next meeting of our society is on Wednesday 2nd December at the history shop at 7.30 pm as usual. This month's speaker is Alan Fildes from 'The Friends of Kagemni'. He will be giving us a talk on Egypt - The Old Kingdom. As it is the meeting before Christmas the usual refreshments will be provided.
Hope to see you at the meeting - B.A.