The
Unofficial Website
Well Dressings in Derbyshire
When I was young,
all those years ago, we regularly used to go into Derbyshire to view the well dressings. When we had a car, my Dad used to drive us to the chosen village and then go fishing whilst the
rest if us looked around and had a picnic. If we didn't have a car, sometimes we used to go on the buses, but that was a three bus journey there and another three bus journey back. A
logistical nightmare, even though the traffic back then was very light compared with today.
So what are well dressings? Well dressings have their origins in the Stone Age when the Celtic peoples cast flowers and garlands on the water in honour of the river gods. There are
Neolithic and Druid remains over many parts of Derbyshire. When Christianity arrived the Catholic Church banned such pagan ceremonies in most places but the custom remained in the folk
memory. In Derbyshire it appears that the church adapted the ceremony as thanksgiving for water, so streams and wells were decorated with flowers.
The earliest recorded well dressings were at Tissington - one history would have it from 1348/9 when the village escaped the plague and another 1615 when the wells keep flowing even during a severe drought. It is held on Ascension Day. Other places have traditions of well dressing from Elizabethan times (16th Century) whilst most belong to a Victorian Revivalist tradition often inaugurated when piped water was supplied to the village. There is usually a service of blessing, a parade and often a flower festival or a full blown gala added on.
Nowadays the well dressings consist of wooden boards or frames covered in clay which is held in place by nails. Into this are pressed natural materials - flowers, petals, grasses, berries, moss, twigs, to form a picture, usually with religious significance. Each town or village has its own tradition in style and execution.
Well dressings are held at from May to September all over Derbyshire with a few straying over the borders into Yorkshire or Cheshire. They are too numerous for me to mention here but there is a leaflet available Tel. 01246 345777/8 to ask for a copy.
Harthill village in South Yorkshire also holds a well dressing in July each year.