OLD-WORLD ARCHITECTURE. VII.

Progress, Volume III, Issue 4, 1 February 1908, Page 132

OLD-WORLD ARCHITECTURE. VII.

Our illustrations to-day are concerned with two characteristic specimens of the minor architectural monuments of old time. In these days of water powers and drainage schemes, wells are thought to be signs of a civic state of affairs but little removed from the ignorance of primitive barbarism. There was a time, however, in the history of the world when they played an important part in the affairs of mankind. The well was the source of water, and in fortified towns could not, like the water supply brought by aqueducts from afar, be cut off at will by an enemy intent on siege operations. Before that, in the more primitive state of society, the well, as the permanent source of water, was held to be sacred, and the cult of benevolent rural deities had, in many countries, grown up around them ; indeed, the great necessary element — water — with its many valuable properties, was sacred in most eyes ; a feeling to which many rivers of the world, notably the Ganges, to this day owe the retention of the belief in the holy character of their waters. The sentiment was acknowledged all ove r mediaeval Europe, and nowhere more so than in " Merrie England," in several counties of which the custom fof "well dressings "—" — the offering of floral tributes — remained in force to a late period. These were specially famous in Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Westmoreland Lnd Lancashire. "(Christianity," remarks a recent chronicler, " substituted a saint's name for that of the local deity of heathenism, but the water worship continued as undiluted as the crystal fountain which had first claimed the gratitude of men." In the course of time, springs in certain parts were found to possess healing

Dwynen, in the Isle of Anglesey, is said to be good against love sickness ; at Sefton, in Lancashire, there is a well into which maids threw pins in order to find out the date of their marriages and to test the faith of their lovers, and there are wells of special interest now for husbands and wives. Others are in vogue only on particular days of the year, such as the well of Trinity Gask, in Perth-

properties, and about many of these legends grew up, more circumstantial than 'truthful, but commanding the belief of all and sundry. Of these some are famous still, and even at this date enjoy the patronage of many believers. For example, in St. Bede's well, at Jarrow, weakly children are dipped and crooked pins are offered in propitiation ; at St. Helen's, in Lancashire, cloth is offered. Several wells in Scotland are famous for the alleged cure of skin diseases ; the well of St.

shire, which used to be sought, not so long ago, on the first Sunday of June every year, and the well of St. Anthony, at Maybloe, to which ailing children always used to be brought on the first Sunday of May. Other wells, again, were of miraculous origin, like the well of Holywell, which is said to have sprung up in St. Beuno's church at the place where the head of the martyr St. Winifred rolled' when struck off by Caradoc, the persecutor of Christians. F As it was in England, so was it also on the continent' of Europe. fAll over Germany tbere are wells and fountains, as there are over France, Italy, and the I/>w Countries. In Alsace they are particularly numerous. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at that the architects and sculptors of the middle ages lavished their art upon the adornment of the wells of their time. The first of our illustrations represents the well of the old Alsatian town of Charnai, not far fromThann. We noted, in a recent issue, the fine church of St. Theobald, of the latter town. It will be seen that at the back of the Charnai well is a church similar in character, very suggestive of the vast influence exercised on the taste of these regions by the fine cathedral of Strasbourg, of which this is the third considerable imitation we have come across in views of this not large region contributed by our Mr. Dillworth Fox to these pages. The design takes us back to the days of the Roman occupation indubitably, with its massive canopy and [deeply-cut entablatures, and its combination of relieving lonic columns. The figures were probably added in later times.'_ Evidently this was a well of the ordinary sort, without any pretensions to the odour of sanctity, and not owing anything to the healing art — just the place where the women assembled at regular hours through^the'dayPto^draw[the domestic water supply and engage in social gossip.

There are medicinal waters in the neighbourhood, at Wesserling, some ten miles away, at the source r *of the River Moselle, the depot of the waters being the last object seen by the traveller before his train disappears into the railway tunnel leading into Alsace from the Vosges on his way eastwards. These waters are probably part of the system which further down the Upper Moselle valley has been famous as a bathing resort since the days of the Romans, the remains of whose bathing establishments are to be seen still in good preservation. These are the springs of Plombieres, containing carbonate, sulphate, and muriate of soda. They are, for the most part, thermal. Plombieres was a great place of resort during the time of the Second Empire. The other illustration shows the old fountain at Wells. The design belongs to the early Gothic, and the fabric has not been too well treated by the wasting fingers of time. This is not the well of St. Anthony, which is not far from the town of Wells. It is simply an ancient fountain, about which the gossips of this historic city used to assemble in olden times, making picturesque grouping around the old basin. The details of the design are lost, but the elegance and harmony of the conception remain for the guidance of all ages. In these two illustrations, the Superior harmony, Gothic r.re very

grace and beauty of the striking.

A new caretaker's house for the Woodville Jockey Club has just been completed. The house contains six rooms and offices. Contract price 10s. Architect, Reginald G. Craig, Woodville ; contractors, Hambhng and Rabone, W oodville.

the parts which had shown, and on the slightest disturbance would show again, signs of settlement and movement — were the dome, the south transept, and the western towers and portico. The settlement of the dome, which had largely occurred during the progress of the building, showed that in sp<te of the care with which Wren spread the weight, the centre of the great m?ss h?d sunk, and was now severed from the sur-