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From
this......... to this
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To
watch the well being uncovered click on the link below to watch
the photo tour.
The
well, situated in Jeffs on Bold Street was uncovered during renovations.
Today
it stands as a wishing well, with the money that is thrown into
it going to Alder Hey Rocking Horse charity
"I
had about eight men working with me in the basement in the dark
and there was this little hole that kept appearing on the floor
over a period of three or four days.
I was
convinced it was a little rat hole, but it wouldn鈥檛 fill in.
I made
it bigger and shone the torch down and all I could see for 35, 40
feet was water. The following morning inspectors for the Building
Regulations came from the Liverpool Corporation. They said they
didn鈥檛 like the look of it and it would be best filled in.
I made
a phone call to the History Museum of Liverpool and they said;
" That is one of the greatest finds in Liverpool City Centre."
So
I set about building the well.
The
archaeologists spent three weeks here and they found lots of things;
clay pipes, little bits of porcelain. They dated it at 240 years
old and they reckon it was there when Bold Street was just fields.
At
that time it was built purely for water drinking purposes. The water
comes through the sandstone. It takes years to come through and
it purifies itself. They used to hide them so no-one knew where
they were, because drinking water was such a premium in those days.
They think possibly the monks had something to do with it.
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proceeds of the well go to the Alder Hey Rocking Horse Appeal.
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The
archaeologists found that there was little channels making their
way to the well.
Under
two foot of soil we found these channels.
Back
in the 17th Century and the beginning of the 18th Century, the land
was owned by the Bowler family, but it used to be called Rope Street,
because of Rope Walks.
In
Rope Walks, they used to measure the rope from the top of Bold Street
to the bottom because that was the length needed for the tunnel
ships and that鈥檚 how they鈥檇 cut it.
They
think that possibly plaiting these ropes had something to do with
the channels they found underground leading towards the well. In
other words they would lower the ropes down in the water via the
channels and would drag them and plait them as they were bringing
them up.
When
people look over, they expect to look about four feet down. When
they see it's forty feet down, their breath goes and they think
they鈥檙e going to fall in."
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