Clifton Wells

Apologies to all well enthusiasts. Last week’s well wasn’t ... it was close but just seems to have been some random iron railings ...
https://www.blipfoto.com/entry/2711336503115514025

I was thinking about my time as a Brownie today. I don’t think I enjoyed it much. I seem to remember being a Sprite and I think I had a badge with a cup and saucer on it. Today I wondered if I’d get a special well hunters badge, if there ever might be such a thing.

It was hot so idled around this morning, watching Peter take Maggie May https://www.blipfoto.com/entry/2186974722787377961 out on the high tide at Overy in Norfolk. I feel like a terrible voyeur which is interesting because if I was sat there in person it would be little different but this is the closest I can get to the ebb and flow of life there at the moment. I resolved to send them a card to see how they are and confess to looking in via the webcam. Then I caught up with my sister on the phone and went to do some shopping for my neighbour. Once back I did some watering and then lay in the garden looking up at the sky, watching the bees doing all the hard work pollinating my blackberries whilst listening to A.C.Grayling talk on democracy at Hay.

Finally it felt a little cooler for a cycle. I was prepared this time. I cycled back to where I went last week, cycled through to Lowther and once again slipped back in time along the long forgotten paths laid out by Thomas Wilkinson and dropped down to the river. This is the first time in my well hunting career that I’ve had to don a wetsuit and water shoes. I looked at the current and the depth and decided against trying to take my camera. I’ll move swiftly on past the bit where I suddenly dropped down a hole and the bit where the current was so strong it nearly had my shoe off of me. Once on the other side I got to the iron railings of last week’s blip. I had a good ferret about but there was absolutely no indication of any promising well signs. I decided to head instead for where the old bridge would have crossed to (the steps on the extra last week are on the other side). Before long I had negotiated the obligatory brambles and got the nettle stings and picked my way through enough water dropwort to fell an elephant. Suddenly I was aware of a fullsome flow of fresh cool water entering the river seemingly from nowhere. I tracked back to the rockface and there were two good outflows of fresh water. That tallied with what I had seen on the map, two wells, not one. I had hoped to see some kind of indication of it being a site that had been visited or worshipped, perhaps some Edwardian or Victorian graffiti as I’d seen at Isis Parlis. But no, just three hollowed out circles which didn’t look naturally formed. Anyway, there was no doubt that this was it and would have been easily accessible when the bridge was there. So, blipper and well hunter ... but no camera ... no good. Back I went, upstream, to cross back again. I got my camera and stuffed it down the front of my wetsuit and went back once again (let’s not mention the tumble where I only just managed to keep it dry). Once I blipped I crossed back and realised there was a very inviting deep pool just downstream and it seemed a shame not to have a swim. Camera safely on a rock, I went back in and had a lovely swim and it was only then as I looked back across to the wells that I realised that the whole section of the rock face looks like it has been cut back to form a sort of natural alter shape. It may have been natural but from here it suddenly took on a much more obvious feeling of a significant site.

You may think the well hunters heroics ended here. But no. I made my way back to my bike, got changed, cycled home and as I was sorting myself and my well hunting gear out I realised the dreaded tick ... ugh ... a thorough check and a quick twist and away with it ... ugh.

All very Famous Five, or not so Famous One, Go Well Hunting. I’m rather hoping freespiral might award badges ...