June 2011

Who are the Friends? Friends promote research, conservation and celebration of the Springs, Spouts, Fountains and Holy Wells of the Malvern Hills and of Great Malvern as a Spa Town.

Malvern's Mount Rushmore

Should the Malvern Hills have their own Rushmore figures? During a recent visit to the famous mountain in South Dakota it occurred to us that the North Quarry would be an ideal site for heads to be carved. Rushmore has four heads. From left to right as you face it, these are: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt  and Abraham Lincoln. They were sculpted by Gutzon Borglum and later by his son Lincoln Borglum. Today it is a major tourist attraction. If Malvern had a similar carving who would we celebrate? Bruce has given our readers an idea of what it might look like by modifying one of the photographs taken of Mount Rushmore. We are not sure about Cora's cowboy hat. Let us have your views.  

New St Werstan Award Nomination - it's your vote that counts.

A Friend has nominated the Hospital Fountain that we featured in the last Newsletter (36) for the St Werstan Award. The Award is a public recognition of outstanding endeavour in the conservation or renovation of our water features. Friends, local residents and visitors can nominate sites for an award by forwarding a short resume of the circumstances and location. Friends of Malvern Springs and Wells are then able to express their views as to whether nominations justify the award by completing a simple appraisal enclosed with the newsletter. The appraisal is based on six factors, preservation, environment enhancement, public accessibility, provenance, maintenance and general WOW! factor.

The Hospital Drinking Fountain started life in the entrance lobby at Malvern Community Hospital, Lansdowne Crescent and dates from the time the hospital was built. The plaque above the fountain recorded the opening of the hospital on 29 May 1911. In February 2011 the historic drinking fountain was restored and relocated in the new Malvern Community Hospital, Worcester Road, Malvern Link alongside other heritage artefacts from the earlier building. It can now be seen in all its glory in the history area on the first floor. Ask at reception if you want to view. Also read our Newsletter 36 on our web site www.malvernsprings.com Do complete and return the questionnaire attached to this newsletter or print off a copy from the web site version of this newsletter and mail it to us completed.

So far five presentations of the prestigious St Werstan Award have been made. Sites awarded receive the impressive St Werstan hand-cast brass engraved shield. Also available is a stained glass window. For much more information about St Werstan, patron saint of Malvern Springs and Wells and the background to this scheme have a look at our web site. Sponsorship for this scheme comes from Coca Cola on behalf of Malvern Water from Colwall, unfortunately now closed. We are grateful for the continuing interest that is shown by Coca Cola in protecting and conserving our springs and wells heritage.

In the picture - the St Werstan Award plaque and window awarded to the Stone Bottle Fountain, now in Malvern Museum as part of its summer exhibition of Malvern Water archives, following closure of the Colwall bottling works.

Malvern in Hot Water - Boring!

With energy cost rises and the recession, little wonder that the prospect of free hot water for heating and general use sounds like a gift from the gods. If you saw BBC News earlier this year you may have seen the latest plans to bore 2000 metres for geothermal energy. At a cost of nine hundred thousand pounds it is intended to sink a borehole in Newcastle so that water at 80 degrees centigrade can be pumped to the surface. It can then be used for all forms of heating, both space and water heating for domestic and industrial applications. The target date for water to be pumped is July 2011. The question is: could a new geothermal source at say Colwall one day be on our list of celebrated springs and wells?

This technology is not new and has already been tested and tried in Southampton some years ago.  As long ago as 1986 the British Geological Survey published 'Geothermal Energy - The Potential for the United Kingdom'. This report comprises nearly 200 pages of detailed information and debate about how and where such resources might best be exploited. Ironically on the map it does not show Newcastle as a 'hot spot'. What is does show is that the Malvern Hills lie in an area of underlying Mesozoic Basin where there are potential geothermal aquifers.  When Schweppes bored down in Colwall circa 1900 they went down a mere 379 metres. Had they gone down just over 5 times this amount would the story of Malvern Water over the last 100 years have been entirely different?

Imagine enjoying, not water in bottles, but water piped to your home ready heated, just like Iceland. Is it just a 'pipe' dream or should we give this further consideration? Bruce will be delighted to join an investigatory team to explore the possibilities and perhaps develop a commercial proposition.

Other nearby springs - Southstone Rock

The Southstone Rock is one of the amazing landscape features in the Abberley and Malvern Hills Geopark. A spring emerging from the base of the Bishop's Frome Limestone along the southerly slope of the Teme Valley is rich in dissolved CaCO3.  This is then deposited as calcium carbonate by the stream on moss near the source of the spring, forming a soft grey rock called Tufa. Where no moss is present the deposit is much smoother and firmer and is known as Travertine.  It has taken something like 6700 years to form the Southstone Rock. As the deposits accumulate the stream moves and commences depositing in a new location.

The site was apparently a medieval cell for monks from the Abbey at Evesham. No doubt the caves that form in the rock and the source of the natural spring were valuable assets to establishing a monastic presence in the locality. In Norman times the chapel of St John surmounted the rock, later to be replaced by a small cottage. The monks were noted for their eremitic garden, providing locally grown herbs for medical as well as dietary uses. Many of the formerly recorded rooms and passages in the rock unfortunately have disappeared over time.

Later the Tufa and Travertine became a useful building stone and several churches along the Teme Valley testify to this. It is easily managed and cut with a briar tooth saw. In particular Eastham church, with stone quarried from Pipers Brook, where the congregation can sit and observe the remnants of plant life and snails still buried in the stone.

Malvern was not only built on water; it was also built on uplands. To St Werstan the Martyr, the availability of both water and uplands were paramount to his choice of a site for his mid-11th century hermitage on the level where Bello Sguardo now stands, at the top of the 99 steps and directly below the ravine and cascade from St Ann's Spring.

The hill slopes on which many of Malvern's town buildings stand is a scree slope, formed over millions of years by weathered rock. Much of the foundation for the roads was constructed with broken stone from the Malvern Hills that were hauled out of the quarries. Houses and walls were also built of Malvern stone, and wells were dug in gardens to mix the lime mortar that welded the irregular stones together.  Many water features were built of such Malvern Stone.

Over time the mortar cracks and disintegrates and the walls are in danger of collapse, so restoration is necessary. Fixing the damage is a skilled job, and Mark Powell learned the art as a 15-year-old lad. He learned the 'cut and struck' method, sometimes called snake mortar. In the picture Mark is repairing part of the wall of Lawnside in Avenue Road. His mortar is a mixture of sand, cement and lime, and the small portion he has completed has taken four hours!

Are new religious associations appropriate for our Springs and Wells?

A Friend has commented that a number of our springs and wells are being tagged with a Christianised name by one local group. For example we see the 'Hay Baptist Well' being used for the Hay Well outfall and 'Trinity' being used for Osborne's Trough located in the wall of the former toilets in the Link. Such water features were secular in origin and have no history of such naming.  In fact most of the Malvern springs and wells had no spiritual application and although the Victorians were prone to link sites to saints and ancient missionaries, research has enabled us to contextualise such errors. But new namings are arguable historically misleading. In spite of this we even see pilgrimages to St Ann's Well and Druidic blessings being organised.

We all now live in a society where many religions are common place. Also there are many who are not religious in outlook but prefer a scientific viewpoint. Worldwide we see religion being used in a confrontational manner. In Malvern, where we do have verified religious association, for example in the case of St Werstan, founding monk of Malvern, then this is a historically valid usage of the name.  What do you think about tagging our springs and wells with new pseudo religious names? What would William Osborne Thorpe, the celebrated Malvern water engineer of 1906 have thought about his trough being renamed 'Trinity' by some? Send us your views.

The end of an era on record.

A Friend has supplied details of the last production run of Malvern bottled water at Colwall.

'Bruce... in the news letter it refers to the last production run stock,  the last bottle was produced on the 14th Oct. 2010. It was on 300ml PET, it was a very short run. The last bottles ever produced came off the line at 16.20, these were given to staff as a departing gift.'

 

The May Day weekend saw something like 40 of our springs and wells decorated for the Annual Well Decorating. It is now one of the largest such events in the country. On the Saturday we toured the decorated sites and came to the conclusion that Barnards Green was the most outstanding. There were many others of great merit and some will be featured in our forthcoming book Celebrated Springs of the Malvern Hills.  The idea of driving down the Guarlford Road and seeing two full size straw horses drinking from the Barnards Green trough was extraordinary and exemplified well the theme of 'Togetherness' that set the style for this year's decoration. The inscription reads:

And so we stand together

The horses, thee and me

As the beasts take sips from the old stone trough

The world turns, quietly

Congratulations to the Friends of Malvern Springs and Wells winners, the trough was decorated by Stephanie Underwood-Webb and friends.

Footnote: You will note that we call the celebrations 'Well Decorating' rather than well dressing. This is because well dressing in the modern day involves flowers pressed into great clay tablets as epitomised by the Derbyshire annual events. In the Malvern Hills it is somewhat different, with many original materials and styles being used.

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