The Mayor and the Bishop of Derby at the Blessing Ceremony
Derby, 1997
This beautiful custom is all but unique to Derbyshire. Once known as 'well flowering', it's thought to have originated in pagan times. Did the remote hills of Derbyshire escape the waves of invasion by Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans that swept other parts of Britain into new cultures and new customs?
However well dressing began, it was banned by the early Christians along with all other forms of water worship - but the tradition refused to die.
So what is it? At its simplest, it's the art of decorating springs and wells with pictures made from local plant life. The dressings are set in clay-filled wooden trays, mounted on a wooden frame. They take hours to complete, and villagers often work through the night to finish in the early hours of the first festival morning. Some villagers dress their wells in secret. Others invite you to come along and watch - the best way to find out how it's done.
The well dressing season spans from May through to late September each year. There are several well dressings which occur over the same dates, so during your visit to Derbyshire you should be able to visit at least one!
The picture and the above text were obtained from the former derbycity.com web site.
To this, I would add that although the tradition of decorating wells on special occasions or as an offering for good water is common to many parts of the world, it is in Derbyshire where it first took the distinctive form of boards which are decorated with elaborate pictures and designs formed of flower petals and other natural materials.
The custom is now common in Derbyshire villages and has spread to neighbouring counties, where this remarkable tradition remains an active part of village life today. A few other places in England have taken up the tradition, for example Bisley in Gloucestershire.
Very occasionally, the art is duplicated is places further afield: often in a twin of a Derbyshire village, for example Die in France, the twin of Wirksworth in Derbyshire. The most distant well dressing of which we have a record is at Perth, in Western Australia, in the 1980s. Although this website concentrates mainly on our local tradition here in the heart of England, we would be delighted to hear of any more farflung examples that may have escaped our attention.
