Welcome to - Barlow Well Dressings

The wells are blessed every year on the Wednesday after the second Sunday in August and marks the start of a week of activities not the least of which is the Carnival Parade on the Saturday.

For your diary -- 14th - 21st August 2013

15th - 22nd August 2012

There are three wells dressed in Barlow

Valley Rise Well
'Main' Well
Small Well

A bit about the dressings and how they're done

Flowers, Grass, Moss Etc.

Previous years

Recent Years

 

The 'art' of dressing wells with flowers probably goes back to pagan times - a thank you to the gods for the gift of fresh water. Although well dressing is peculiar to Derbyshire and the Peak District examples can be found in Staffordshire, South Yorkshire and Cheshire. There is no definitive way to dress a well, although similar, methods of preparation and decorating vary from village to village.  

 

Friends -

 

 


Contact -

 

Barlow Church

Barlow Village

Derbyshire in Focus

johnadams591@btinternet.com 

Extract from a letter dated 1908, written by Mary Haslam to her daughter Anne Lomas:-

Barlow Lees, August 13th

"Me & Aunt Sarah rode with them last night to see the well. Mabel and their children walked across the fields to Barlow, the trap would not hold us all. Mr Wells fetched us back. The well looks very pretty both at Barlow & Commonside"

 

Everybody is Somebody is a book about Barlow and it's people.

The book is no longer in print but it is available as a CD or an e-book (pdf format).

An evening picture from 2009
 

Working on the well in 1907