Location: immediately west of the Herefordshire Beacon on land belonging to Winds Acre.
Description: a hand pumping engine over a well.

From the British Camp car park continue along the A449 towards Ledbury. After a few hundred metres is a track off to the left, which eventually leads to Walms Well. A short distance up the track on the left is an unusual hand-operated windlass which operates a double lift pump in a well approximately three metres deep. Its water supplied The Pleck (formerly Beacon Cottage), an adjacent cottage lower down the hill. The particulars of a sale of the estate in 1920 recorded that the rotary windlass pump supplied water for washing purposes. The windlass is no longer in working order but is a rare example of a domestic facility still in situ.

At one time nearby Winds Acres was owned by Professor Alardyce Nicoll who was occasionally visited by his friend - the artist, author, poet, playwright and designer Dame Laura Knight (1877 - 1970). In the 1930s she used the upper room of the stable and coach house as a studio and extended the west window to improve the light and the view.[1] During the 1935 Malvern Festival the local newspaper reported that Professor and Mrs Alardyce would be staying at their pretty hillside cottage and that they proposed to name it "Wind's Acre," because they were often telephoned by the wind.[2]  They did, and the house has since been known by that name.

There is also a second well in the grounds.

 

Illustrations:
1. Windlass.
2. Storm over our town, Malvern, painted 1935-51, Dame Laura Knight. The windy weather that gave rise to the name.

Footnotes:
[1] Personal communication with Mrs Nicoll, December 1998.
[2] Malvern Gazette 17 August 1935. 

 

 

 

The map alongside is a small section of our more comprehensive map of the area. For the complete map together with a description and history of this site see "Celebrated Springs of the Malvern Hills" (2012).

 

 

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