The Wells, Cleobury

Image: © Jeremy Bolwell Taken: 13 Nov 2012

Once the source of Cleobury inhabitant's water for centuries and now a tourist attraction or point of interest on the main road. The sign describes how a spring wells up here, forming a pool that originally made Cleobury a viable place to make a settlement. Early residents would have come daily with a pail to scoop their drinking water. Apparently waggoners also used to drive their wagons and horses through the pool as a means of swelling their wooden cart wheels and spokes in order to maximise the servicable life of such components, which can't have done much for the water quality, but was not illegal at the time. It was only in Victorian times that attention was paid to the water purity and it was decided that maybe taking water for human consumption from a spring or well issuing from a point immediately below a large and well established cemetery was maybe not the best idea. Burials were restricted to the further side of the cemetery only from the 1880's and the cemetery was closed to new burials from 1895. 'What don't kill ya makes ya stronger' I suppose.

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