Holymoorside Well Dressing

About

Loads Lane Well 3 dressings at the restored well on Loads Lane, near the foot of Cotton Mill Hill

Well Dressings are a unique and ancient Derbyshire tradition consisting of pictures made of flowers, petals and leaves pressed into clay-covered boards.
The first record of well dressing in Holymoorside is in the 'Derbyshire Courier' in 1848, although it seems it was already a well established tradition. The tradition seems to have been abandoned early in the 20th century but was restarted by a group of locals in 1979.
The early well dressings were at the prodigious 'Whispering Well' spring, but in 1897, this was incorporated into the mains water supply, so our modern well dressings are set up by the river Hipper.
Our Village Well Dressing is one of the largest at 2.4 x 3.6m. We have a small children's well, flowered by those 10 years and under. In 2010 we also introduced a 'teens well, when the teenagers (10 to 16) decided they wanted to design and complete their own dressing.
Each village has its own well dressing traditions and rules. In Holymoorside we only use flowers, leaves and other plant material such as seed heads, but we do not buy any flowers, all our material is collected from village gardens or hunted out in nearby hedgerows.
When the well dressing is taken down, we save all of our clay and barking (small strips of wood used for outlining) for next year, so our well dressing is very sustainable!
Holymoorside well dressings are unusual in that we always build the well dressings on site, in the open air, so any visitors can see the work in progress, and even join in, if they are interested.