Recollections of Blaisdon Hall
The Blaisdon Well
"Drink waters out of thine own cistern and running waters out of thine own well. Proverbs: 5-15"
Close by Blaisdon village War Memorial, a fresh water well is still visible. Mr. Bill Brewer, RIP, the former Blaisdon Hall engineer (1900 -1950) recalled that the men digging the foundations to The Lodge (1890's) struck a water spring. It proved to be fortuitous - in a variety of ways.
The great walled garden, the (1870's) kitchen garden for Blaisdon Hall - now owned by George Keyse Jnr., - relied on a constant supply of water being horse-drawn in a barrel-bowser up the village from Blaisdon Brook and decanted into tanks in situ for flower and vegetable watering. It was decided to trap the newly discovered spring water: a huge underground tank was created in front of The Lodge. Iron pipes were laid and a gravity supply was now on tap, not only to the Kitchen garden, but the dwellings below The Lodge's position. A remote pressure valve opened to replenish supply and closed when the tank was full. The excess filtered away. But not quite...
Because of the natural sloping ground and the need for a horse trough, an expense the Parish Council baulked at, a ground-level well was created close to Blaisdon Cottage. This meant its occupants and those of the nearby Post Office and Blaisdon House could draw off water for household use. The Lodge was supplied with water from the original Blaisdon Hall system linked to an artificial rain-water catchment lake formed in the woods above Cinder Hill. It was topped up by water pumped to adjacent sand filtration tanks from an artesian well situated in The Pump House at Stanley Corner.
Bertie Buckett RIP recalled the ground well was protected with a wooden cover to prevent animals drinking direct from it. As most carts carried a bucket before the arrival of tractors, water was drawn from the well to refresh thirsty horses. The boys at Blaisdon Hall often drank from it on walks and cross-country runs; they lay flat on the ground and sipped from its limpid surface. I remember drinking there and washing the mud from my legs before the final lap, under The Lodge, and up the drive to The Hall.
Whether it was foresight or happy accident, the underground reservoir, also ensured a ready supply of water in case of village house fires. The medieval Blaisdon hamlet had perished, largely due to its wooden buildings and their distance from a ready supply of water.
During the 1950s, factors such as the high tadpole count, in the Blaisdon Hall baths and wash-basins, determined the end of the water supply system - created in the 1870s - and called for statutory replacement. In 1957, a ring water main laid from Hinder's Corner was soon linked to all the village properties. My modest claim to history is that I was given the job of back-filling the line of the iron water pipe that runs up Blaisdon Hall Park from the road opposite Buena Vista Cottage. Earlier, a man from Taynton, with three fingers missing from his right hand, had spade dug the trench single-handed in 3 weeks.
"They who drink from this well will thirst again - yet when they drink the water from the well I give them - they will have eternal life. John 4. 13-14"
Tony Brady. May 2010
