Travellers have always needed to drink, and so have their horses and dogs. Yet on the ancient ridgeways, crossing the limestone hills of north Derbyshire, there are few streams or ponds, and so providing drinking places has been critical. Stone troughs fed by springs are found by many old roads, though it is not clear who first installed them. The four horses needed to haul a stagecoach uphill for a mile or two would have needed a long drink by the time they reached the top of the climb.

Wells were another source of water, though usually designed just for human use. and more commonly found in villages. Well dressing is a famous Derbyshire custom, and is normally seen as a celebration of a reliable and plentiful water supply – possibly pre-Christian, although now, as the example above shows, co-opted by the Church. Wells have frequently given their name to streets, as with Coldwell Street in Wirksworth or Coldwell End in Youlgrave. Others were sanctified with a saint’s name, such as St Alkmund’s well above, or St Anne’s well in Buxton. It seems likely that the tradition of ‘holy wells’ pre-dates the Reformation in 1539, and in some cases the water from these wells was thought to have a healing value.

Today it seems shocking how long it took to provide a piped, clean water supply in many Derbyshire villages. Youlgrave was unusual in that it installed its stone reservoir in the centre of the village in 1829 (below), from which local wells such as the one above were supplied. Even today Youlgrave still has its own water supply, independent of Severn Trent. But right up to 1940 nearby Elton people relied on carrying water in buckets from a spring at Burycliffe, half a mile from the village.

The names of some old wells can be found on large-scale OS maps, for example Lady Wall Well, north of Baslow on the old route over the moor to Sheffield. Sadly, many of these have become filled with rubbish and are easily overlooked. Cleaning and renovating a local well would be a valuable project for a volunteer neighbourhood group, and help to preserve a link with the not-so-distant past.