Well well well

Thu 5 Mar, 16:17

The tunnel at the bottom could be just to increase the area gathering water to increase the yield. The well supplying the old Thames and Severn Canal at Thameshead had tunnels extending many hundreds of yards for that purpose.

Thu 5 Mar, 15:02

Thank you to everyone for your help. The Gospel for this Sunday is Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well so wells have been on my mind this week. Ours is beautifully constructed with stone lining all the way down. There does appear to be a tunnel towards the bottom.Any suggestions for what that is?

Thu 5 Mar, 12:15

Great placement of “water” threads: “well well well” next to “possible water supply interruptions tomorrow” 
We’ll all be lining up with our buckets outside Park Street or Hixet Wood

Thu 5 Mar, 11:14

I lifted the floor boards in the drawing room (to add underfloor insulation) and we found traces of a well there. It would have been convenient to draw water inside the house. We're on the Spelsbury Road.

Thu 5 Mar, 10:36

We also have a stone-lined well in the garden, on the outskirts of Charlbury on the Fawler Road.  I believe it is much older than the house, though - probably 150-200 years old, compared with 50 years for the house.  Possibly built to service a smallholding before there was any domestic property in the area.

Thu 5 Mar, 10:21 (last edited on Thu 5 Mar, 10:25)

We have a well in our garden, which was probably the supply for the four houses in our "block" on Park St as there used to be a passageway leading to it. We discovered it when we built an extension 20 years ago, before which it had been covered up with soil.  Like Simon's it is beautifully lined with stone.  When we have a lot of rain, the water comes nearly to the top but it has never flooded over, and the water level goes down very quickly, so I think it must be connected to an underground stream, possibly the one further down the road which runs from Hixet Wood.

Thu 5 Mar, 09:02

Up here in our part of Hixet Wood, three out of four neighbouring houses each had its own well.  I remember Roy Shadbolt telling me that his was either 60 or 80 feet deep, and they would all have been hand-dug through rock to get to the level where water would pond in the bottom of the well.  We found the top of ours, which had been filled in long ago;  it was beautifully lined with walling stone as far as we could see down, so clearly it was not cheap to do.

Thu 5 Mar, 08:37

The wells were mainly for domestic water supply, from the times before the Charlbury water supply company was set up in 1896. (Many continued in use well beyond that date.)  One well may have supplied several houses, terraces of three houses often only having one well between them.  Considering how close some of them were to the outside privvies, it is just as well they are not in use any more.

Thu 5 Mar, 07:20 (last edited on Thu 5 Mar, 07:22)

They probably draw off the same aquifer?

Thankfully the well in The Rose & Crown is not used to dilute the beer! 

It might come in handy though if Thames Water’s supply problems endure.

Wed 4 Mar, 21:29

Not a joke about the three headed policeman but a genuine enquiry about the wells that are found in some Charlbury houses. Does anyone know what age they and  for what purpose? It is said, so they say, that the wells are connected. ?