Tuesday 10 April 2012

Dotty's Well

Dotty's Well today.  The well is actually a concrete sleeve driven deep into the rock, actually a fault between the ancient gneiss and green sandstone, from which a spring emerges.  This provided the beautiful water supply to Port Charlotte until relatively recently.  When progress in the form of the current station intervened, the well was forgotten, by pretty much everyone except James Brown on whose land it resides.  He took me to it in 1997, while Bruichladdich was shut and long before the renaissance, but it had been covered by landslip.  I returned with a spade, and dug the hill back, finding the spring exactly where James said it would be.  The well itself was covered with a concrete slab, but digging the hill back and moving the slab had made the water muddy.  We returned again a few weeks later, with our families and some empty lemonade bottles.  The water was absolutely delicious.  When Bruichladdich opened again, they were looking for a source of great water...  Dotty passed every test the authorities asked of her, and now she has a nice little path down and a little shed to protect her.  It's still the same concrete sleeve though.  Still the same great water....

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