Natalie Zaman
Walk about Tideswell in England’s Peak District about the time of the summer solstice and you’ll come upon a curious and beautiful sight. On Fountain Square one of the village’s four long unused water sources is hidden from view behind a colorful mosaic screen. The central image is an ancient cathedral surrounded by a border filled with visions of the English countryside—wrolling, green patchwork hills dotted here and there with snowy sheep. The words “For the beauty of the earth, For the beauty of the sky” crown the picture. Come a bit closer and you’ll see that this is an impermanent display. Not made of tiles or stones, the image is rendered completely in flowers, seeds, even a bit of fruit here and there—still fresh, for it’s only a day old. What you’re looking at is a well dressing, a Tideswell tradition (with some lapses) for over 750 years.
Wells, springs, and the like have been sacred Pagan sites for millennia. Then as now, water was essential to life, and springs and wells had deities attached to them—often though not always female—to whom offerings would be made to ensure a fresh and abundant supply. Because the source of the water is underground, these sites were associated with the womb and birth. Springs, like Aquae Sulis dedicated to Minerva in Bath, England, and various wells all over Ireland dedicated to Brigid were sacred to local folk, but became places of pilgrimage. It was commonplace for people to leave offerings of thanks, or petitions as was discovered during excavations at Bath where jewels and curse tablets were retrieved from the drain.
The earliest well dressings were more like offerings, and they were very simple. Flowers and other natural materials were arranged around the water source when they were available. Over time the offerings took on a Christian hue though they still had an underlying Pagan nature. Anna Franklin says that foxgloves (a flower associated with fairies) were used in England to dress wells dedicated to Nechtan, the husband of the Celtic river goddess Boann. In the Middle Ages Nechtan became St. Nectan whose hermitage was under a waterfall in Cornwall—essentially the same deity, though in a different guise.
Eventually the church banned well dressings, dismissing them as being too Pagan, but after the Black Death swept through in the fourteenth century, the practice was revived and survived in rural and isolated Derbyshire. Simple well offerings can be seen the world over, but the Peak District is the only place where this tribute, both Pagan and Christian in practice, lives on, on a large scale.
June 24 is designated as Well Dressing Day, but villages create dressings from May through September. Most go up in the summer, particularly in June and July when the materials to make them—flowers, fruit, and seeds—are abundant. Once the dressing is complete, the well is blessed, kicking off a week of celebrations, or “wakes.” Today, Wakes Week (which lasts a little longer than the dressing, which is fresh for only a handful of days) culminates in a carnival or fair as it has for hundreds of years. (Check out http://welldressing.com/calendar.php for a schedule of well dressing dates and locations throughout the district.)
When well dressings became formal, community affairs is uncertain, but we have the Victorians to thank for the elaborate large-scale dressings seen today. When piped water became available, taps and pumps were dressed as well, thus many of the villages of the Peak District have several water sources to decorate. Because of this, entire communities can be involved in their creation and the festivities that follow.
The process is much the same as it’s been for centuries. First, wooden trays are built in different lengths and widths, but with a depth of only one to two inches. These trays are soaked, usually in a natural water source such as a pond or stream after which they are filled with a mixture of clay that’s been “puddled” (mixed thoroughly until it’s completely smooth) with salt water. The shallow depth of the tray and the saturated wood helps to maintain the moisture necessary to keep the dressing fresh for as long as possible.
When the trays are prepared, a cartoon of the chosen design that has been drawn on paper first is pricked into the clay before the picture is “petaled.” Whole flowers, petals, leaves, moss, and other fodder from forest and field are used to fill in the images, some of which are as intricate as a Renaissance painting. Modern dressings have included tributes to the Olympics held in London in 2012, and the 150th anniversary of Alice in Wonderland in 2015, but as of old, a combination of biblical, historical, and nature and folkloric themes will always be found in well dressing art.
At the solstice, find a water source that is sacred to you. Whom do you perceive as its patron god or goddess? Leave a floral tribute, no matter how simple, and a word of thanks. Water is life.
Additional Reading
Barrow, Mandy. “Well Dressing.” British Life and Culture: Calendar of Special Events and Celebrations, 2010. http://resources.woodlands.kent.sch.uk/customs/questions/welldressing/index.html
Castelow, Ellen. “Well Dressing.” Historic UK The History and Heritage Accommodation Guide. http://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Well-Dressing/
Franklin, Anna. Midsummer: Magical Celebrations of the Summer Solstice. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2003.
Schama, Simon. A History of Britain: At the Edge of the World? New York: Hyperion, 2000.
“Well Dressings.” Peak District Information. http://www.peakdistrictinformation.com/features/welldress.php
Williams, Glyn. “More About Well Dressings.” Welldressings.com, 2011. http://welldressing.com/extra.php