Well Dressing

[firetto]

What is a "Well Dressing"?

[andy hughes]

Well dressing dates back to the 1300's, and is thought to based on pagan rituals giving thanks for water. The ritual is carried on mostly in Derbushire, although Endon, in Stoke-on-Trent has a well dressing each year - they usually take place in spring or summer and coincide with a country fair or similar celebration. Briefly, people build a mosaic out of natrual materials, usually into a series of one-inch square frames which are then assembled to buld the picture, which usually standsa round five feet tall. It is transported to the well, and usually left for a week or so - weather permitting. Some well dressing committess keep their design secret until the day, others let people watch the mosaic being built. Oddly, the practice has hardly spread at all outside Derbyshire, but Endon, near Stoke-on-Trent has one, but I've never actually been, so I can't say how good it is.

[derbyram]

We Derbyshire people are simple folk and we believe that if we don't make the wells look nice at least once a year then we'll have no water (like Yorkshire). Wirksworth probably has the biggest well dressing 'festival' in Derbyshire.

[Hippy]

Derbyram has possibly not been to Eyam then.

[Cetti]

I'm sure the biggest and the best are in Derbyshire, but the little village of Upwey in deepest Dorset also boasts of such a ceremony.