Derbyshire Well Dressings

I'm going back now to August when Mick has his time off work. On the Sunday during his holiday we decided to have a drive into Derbyshire. This county has a custom which is known to be at least 300 years old, probably more, well dressing. The Peak District is made up of limestone areas where water seeps away through fissures in the underlying rock and there are few streams. Wells formed from springs and this encouraged people to set up villages nearby. The tradition of well dressing, or adorning the wells with flowers, appears to have evolved as a way of giving thanks.

The displays are made from a clay base with flowers and natural materials pressed into it. We managed to find three villages which were having their well dressing celebrations during the week we visited. Other villages have their well dressings at different times of the year.

Foolow well dressing theme this year is Foolow Wildlife. They selected some local fauna and flora in celebration of the natural world around the village.

You can see on this close up of the bullfinch how the picture has been created with flower petals, feathers, greenery, bark, lots of different natural materials. It's so clever how they're made.

We then visited Barlow where there are three wells dressed, the Valley Rise Well, the 'Main' Well and the 'Small' Well. The first well we came to was the Main Well and the theme of the display was Fragile World.

The theme of the Small Well, known locally as the Children's Well, was The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

The third well, or Valley Rise Well, is commemorating the coronation of King Charles III.

Blackwell is a hamlet along the road to Taddington and their well dressing sits in the corner of a field belonging to a farm house. The theme here is caving, a very popular pursuit in the Peak District because of the limestone hills, there's plenty of caves to explore.

Onwards to Taddington, their theme was 'Unique to the Peak' highlighting some of the things which make the Peak Park a special place. Taddington's village fete was in full swing as we arrived, there was a brass band playing and stalls a plenty and we had a lovely time looking round.

We had a lovely day out, something a bit different from the norm. If you'd like to read more about well dressings, I wrote a post about our visit to the Tissington Well Dressing back in 2019.