Well dressing

What it is

A well dressing stands upright behind or over the water source, often two metres tall or more, like an altarpiece. The subject may be a Bible scene, a local anniversary, a landscape or something from the news. Larger villages dress several wells at once, and children make their own smaller boards. The dressings are blessed in a short open air service, often with a procession and a brass band. The week usually ends with a village fair known as the wakes.

Where it comes from

Nobody knows how the custom began. Some suggest it continues a pre-Christian habit of honouring springs. A local account in Tissington, the village most associated with it, says the wells were first dressed in thanks after the village escaped the Black Death in 1348 and 1349. Another links it to a severe drought in 1615, when Tissington's wells kept flowing. These are traditions, not proven history. The custom spread to many other villages from the nineteenth century onward, often to celebrate the arrival of piped water.

How it is made

The wooden boards are soaked for days in a river or pond so they will not draw water from the clay. Clay is mixed with water and salt and trodden until smooth, then spread over the boards. The design is drawn on paper, laid on the clay and pricked through with a point. The outlines are marked with small dark items such as alder cones or seeds. Then the colour is filled in. Petals are pressed in one at a time, overlapping from the bottom up like roof tiles, so that rain runs off.

How to take part

1. Tissington dresses its wells for Ascension Day, in May. Other villages follow through the summer.
2. Look up the year's calendar. Each village keeps the same week from year to year.
3. Go in the two or three days before the blessing to watch the petalling. Visitors are often invited to add a petal.

Good manners

• Do not touch the finished panels. The clay is soft and a fingerprint stays.
• Leave a coin in the collection box. The money goes to local causes.

The flowers

Well dressingDecorating wells with flower petal pictures in rural EnglandHydrangeaFlowering shrubs with large heads that change color with soil pHButtercupA widespread group of bright, often shiny-petalled wild and garden flowersAlderDeciduous trees and shrubs with cone-like catkins, found near water in cooler regionsDelphiniumTall garden flowers with spurred blooms in blue, purple, pink, and white

Also part of it, and being written: Bellis perennis.

Sources and further reading

• Well dressing on Wikipedia