Well dressed – in Buxton, Derbyshire

I’m just back from a week in Buxton, England having attended the excellent Sacred Waters Conference organised by Sewanee Liberal Arts College, Tennessee and Durham University, England. It was well attended with speakers and participants from America, England, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Ibiza, Scotland, Finland, Portugal, Sweden, Netherlands, India, Nigeria and Wales.

It was held in the very glamorous surroundings of the Crescent, recently restored.

In fact we gathered in the Assembly Hall, resplendent with columns and an impressive ceiling.

It was wonderful to be fully immersed in all things sacred waters and to listen to so many varied and interesting papers, subjects varying from the obscurity of Finnish wells, to Lithuanian charms involving water, to the lost wells of Galloway, to holy wells springing up near Russian interment camps, to the decimation of Ibizan wells by the tourist industry. I hope I did the peregrination of St Gobnait proud!

The reason Buxton was chosen of course is that it has long been appreciated for its remarkable and highly beneficial thermal waters – they still flow freely through ancient rocks a mile underground and emerge at a constant and surprising 27C. The springs continue to produce 1 million litres a day, the water that gushes forth believed to be 5000 years old! It is rich in minerals and has long been appreciated for its health-giving qualities.

The Romans recognised the power and value of the waters that were surely already being revered by the Iron Age Brits and named the town Aqua Arnemetiae – meaning water of the goddess of the sacred grove. Aqua Sulis or Bath is the only other town that was honoured with the title Aqua in Britain. How nice to see the goddess still revered in an excellent coffee shop.

By the medieval period the cult of St Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary, had spread throughout Europe and a well was dedicated to her. A small chapel and shrine were built over a spring and at one point a wooden statue of the saint was supposedly found in the well, this being regarded as a miracle and adding to the well’s potency and sacredness. Many pilgrims visited and the chapel was festooned with crutches and other offerings. William of Worcester, writing in 1460, commented:

It performs many miracles in curing the sick, and in the Winter is a warm as new milk.

The chapel was eventually dissolved on the orders of King Henry VIII in 1538, the shrine locked, and its idol, the statue of St Anne, destroyed. However its potency seems to have continued undiminished for Mary Queen of Scots visited on several occasions, searching for a cure for her rheumatism. Although at this point a prisoner, she stayed in the Old Hall and visited the well many times wtth seemingly excellent results:

It is incredible how the bath has soothed my nerves and dried my body of the phlegmatic humours which by reason of feeble health, it was so abundantly filled.

Mary Queen of Scots, 1573, whilst staying at the Old Hall

Incidentally, the Old Hall remains and is now a hotel.

By the late 17th century, the springs were being predominantly valued for their medicinal rather than sacred qualities. Thomas Hobbes, writing in 1678, described the well as one of the seven Wonders of the Peaks and said:  

…this cures the palsied members of the old, and cherishes the nerves grown stiff and cold.

Thomas Hobbes, De Mirabilibus Pecci: Being The Wonders of the Peak in Darby-shire (1678)

A 100 years later and spa towns were at the height of their popularity. The landowner, the Duke of Devonshire, recognised the potential of Buxton and invested much effort and money into upgrading and refurbishing the town, hoping to make it compete with fashionable Bath or Leamington Spa. The magnificent Crescent, built in 1780s and designed by John Carr, was originally two hotels and private apartments designed to cater for upmarket visitors. It was built on the site of the original ancient grove, which was cut down to make way for the building. When people feared they had no access to the medicinal waters there was a public outcry and the Duke built a new wellhouse, also deigned by Carr, and an enclosure act of 1772 declared the well to be public property, forever a source of free water to the townspeople. The image below dates from 1785 and is by an unknown engraver.

The Duchess herself benefited from the new wellhouse and was glowing in her praises of the of the water:

I bathe tomorrow having had a good deal of pain, and drink two glasses, I am sure I shall be quite well, we shall live the wholesomest of lives here, dine out and go to bed at 11 – up at 7.

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, 1786

The spa continued to thrive during the 19th century, a new wellhouse was built in 1852 designed by Henry Currey and a gift from the Duke of Devonshire. This was replaced in 1895 by another drinking water pump.

Many of the handsome buildings put up during the Victorian still remain including the Winter Gardens, the Opera House, the Pump Rooms and the impressive parks, all enhancing the experiences of the spa visitors. The arrival of the railway in 1860s made access to the town even easier.

Decline eventually set in in the early 1900s and by the the late 1990s, the Crescent had fallen into disrepair and it was not until 2003 that an extensive and comprehensive revamp was undertaken, completed in 2020. It is now a luxurious hotel, the Natural Mineral Baths remain within and form the wellness Spa.

St Anne’s Well can be found next to the Pump Rooms and opposite the Crescent. It may be near the site where the Romans originally built a structure over the springs and archaeological excavations have revealed bath houses and many Roman coins. The current wellhouse was put up in 1940 and is a listed building. It is an imposing structure, a niche containing an an attractive statue of St Anne along with her daughter, the BVM, the work of Herbert William Pallisser (1883-1963).

Beneath them, the water gushes out continuously from the lion’s mouth, unexpectedly and shockingly warm. The plaque informs that it is A Well of Living Waters.

And it is for there is a constant supply of visitors collecting the water – some come armed with enormous containers and even trailers to carry it all back in! One man told me he came every week to get his water supply. My brother, far left, sampled its benefits!

Well dressing

In 1840 the Duke of Devonshire piped water to the town and the citizens revived the ancient custom of well dressing, a ritual originally designed to give thanks for the gift of water. Apart from a break between 1912 and 1925, the event has been held annually. The custom continues today and three wells in the town are dressed: St Anne’s Well, the Children’s Well and the Market Well. The Buxton Well Dressing Festival celebrates this old custom and after the wells are formally blessed, the partying begins!

Although in some places the dressing is considered top secret, visitors and locals in Buxton are invited to come an see the petallers hard at work in St Peter’s Church.

Inside the cavernous church a team of 18 women (apologies if there were also men but I didn’t see any) were hard at work. It is complex, creative and time-consuming.

This year, 2024, the volunteers worked for three days on five large wooden panels. Each panel is first covered in fresh clay which is puddled or squished to make it soft and pliant. The design is then drawn (originally only scenes from the Bible were used but now the subjects are very diverse) and the image carefully built up with vast amounts of colourful flower petals, each row overlapping slightly to allow rainwater to run off. Sometimes seeds and other organic materials are also used.

The panels are then placed over the wells and remain in place for a week. Every year each well has a different theme. This year the tableau at St Anne’s well celebrates the 200th anniversary of the National Gallery, resplendent with beautiful and intricate references to Monet and Manet.

As the panel covers the well’s spout, it’s out of action for the week and, mindful of the Duke’s promise to forever provide access to the water, a temporary wellhouse is set up. Not quite as glamorous as the original but still much used.

Nearby in Spring Gardens, the Children’s Well or Taylor Well is also decorated. This was originally a fountain donated to the town in 1886 by Joseph William Taylor as a source of fresh water. It’s a fine edifice made from pink granite, sadly now dry

The well is traditionally decorated by the local school children, hence its name, and they’ve done a great job this year.

Up in the Market Place the cistern, again once supplying fresh water to the upper part of the town, displays a beautifully decorated panel with a strong ecological message.

The lion’s head inside pump room is also decorated this year, honouring the Mountain Rescue team.

Another public drinking fountain is garlanded but not fully dressed. This was erected in 1878 in memory of Samuel Taylor, a benefactor of the town, the waters no longer flowing.

Well dressing takes place throughout Derbyshire between May and September with over 80 towns and villages blessing and decorating their wells. Here are a few other examples of wells, dressed and undressed.

Long may this custom and celebration continue.