St. Mary’s Well

I have called this St. Mary’s Well. It is a name referred to by the archaeologist Roland Close in his report on his excavation of the Iron Age huts on Percy Rigg. Unfortunately, I have not been able to read his report published before the days of the internet. A copy has been requested but that was some time ago. However, the name is repeated in The Modern Antiquarian website and suggests the Iron Age settlement on Percy Rigg was served by this spring. I must admit the well took me by surprise. I happened to move aside overgrowing heather and vegetation and was amazed to find a dressed stone roofed trough with clear running water. Ferns mosses decorated the sides with a spider’s web curtain. Outside a few dressed stones lain prone partially buried with another standing some feet down the stream. The 1856 Ordnance Survey map records a trough and a stone but by the 1895 edition the trough has been omitted. The obvious question is why? The well is in the middle of of a heather moor. The nearest building is Sleddale Farm, one kilometre away. There is the Iron Age settlement of course, about 400m away, but I do not think the dressed stones are 2,400 years old, medieval at most but more likely 18th-century. One thing is certain, a lot of work has gone into its construction.