The Mitcham Obelisk

The Faded London eye has been a bit busy over the last few weeks so things have been rather quiet on the posting front. However a recent stroll through Mitcham did reveal one of those intriguing items that are so big you never notice them. Or rather you notice them but totally misinterpret what they are.

Side view of the Obelisk

In this case it was a large, dark and rather foreboding obelisk at the far end of the Cricket Green. I've driven past it many times and had always assumed that it was a war memorial of some sort and not paid it a great deal of attention.  This time I was on foot and as I approached could make out two distinct plaques - One recorded the date of 25 September1822 whilst the other seemed to be a few biblical verses. Intriguing stuff!

 The inscription and verses - as best I can make out - were these

????? to the goodness of GOD through whose bounty water has been provided for this neighbourhood
God opened the rock and the waters gushed out. They ran in dry places like a river  Psalms C105 V41

He turneth dry ground into water springs Psalms CVII V

For everything that hath breath praise the lord Psalms CL
A fountain shall water the valley ?????

The dedication and biblical inscriptions

Well there's obviously a strong water theme going on here and the date reminded me of the recent post I did on the Tooting artesian well a few weeks back which had a date of 1823 upon it.

Quite imposing but a bit on the austere side

My suspicion was that with the boring for water in Tooting such a success, there must have been a temptation for other local villages to get in on the act whilst the borers were still in the area. This seems to be confirmed by an article in Journal of the Society of Arts of 1877 which noted

"The Wandle valley presents a probably unique feature in the number of overflowing wells it contains. The oldest of these the public well near Tooting Church, was bored in 1822. Owing to the success of this boring another was bored by Mr Cranmer at a house called 'The Cannons' in September of the same year."

 Mr Cranmer wasn't just Mr Cranmer but actually the local Reverend and descendant of the famous Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury for Henry VIII and leading light in the foundation of the Church of England. No great surprise that that the inscription was so biblical then!

If this letter to The Mechanics Magazine of 1825 is to be believed it seems that not only was the well still flowing but that the Rev Cranmer actually had more than one well sunk. This account notes there were three, presumably separate, wells bored on his land.

To instance a few wells thus bored, - there is one on the coach road side at Tooting, five miles from Westminster Bridge, bored at the expense of the parish; and another at the same place on the premises of Mr Rolason, nurseryman, both abundant springs; there are three wells on the estate of the Rev. R. Cranmer, Mitcham Surrey and one on the premises of Messers. Holden, Coach proprietors, Mitcham.

The Mechanics Magazine 1825

It might well have been flowing in 1825 but it seems that the joy of Mitcham with its new water supply was short-lived

It's starting to feel its age a bit

"Erected 1822 by the Rev. Mr Cranmer then rector, who lived here, in order to commemorate the happy discovery of water by the sinking of an artesian well. It bears an inscription of thanks to Almighty God for the discovery which really was a boon to the poor at that time, the village not being well supplied. Shortly after the erection of the monument however, the supply of water failed [and]  the inscription has been allowed to become illegible."

Greater London: A Narrative of its History, its People and its Places by Edward Walford

So that seems that a very religious local worthy took advantage of Tootings success with the artesian well, hired the borer, hit water amidst general rejoicing and then commissioned an expensive monument only to have the well go dry soon after. The obelisk must have been a bit of an embarrassment for the Rev. Cranmer and was gently shunted off to a corner of the Cannons estate before finally being rescued and placed on a street corner. Still, if nothing else it does emphasise the importance of fresh clean water to the communities of the time and the lengths to which they'd go to obtain it.

Tooting's Well

If you were to take a stroll up Mitcham Road from Tooting it wouldn't be long before you saw an intriguing item on the pavement on the corner with Church Road. It's not a statue, or an obvious piece of sculpture - in fact it looks a little like a drain stink-pipe crossed with a broken village clock tower - but it is, in fact a commemorative marker. What it marks is the position of Tooting's very first publicly owned artesian well!

I don't really know much about wells and, interesting as it might be, I wasn't really all that sure why having a well was worthy of such a memorial.  If it came to that I wasn't really sure what the difference was between an artesian and any other sort of well*, so I thought I'd see what I could find out about the subject in general and Tooting's wells in particular.

First off there was the question of geology - how deep did the well have to go and what did they have to drill through? I found the answer in a most unexpected place, the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, Volume 71 which seemed to have quite a lot of information about the geology of Tooting. This describes the process of boring a well just up the road but I assume it's a pretty good indicator of the task faced by the locals at that time.

Edinburgh medical and surgical journal, Volume 71 1849

To put this into some sort of perspective Richmond Bridge over the Thames is 280ft long, so stand that on end and that's how far down the residents of Tooting had to go to get some fresh water!

That Tooting was short of water must have been bad enough, but the fact that the neighbouring village of Streatham had water in abundance must have rubbed salt in the wound somewhat as they seemed to have more than enough for their needs, even becoming something of a tourist attraction as a result. Wikipedia notes that

The village [of Streatham] remained largely unchanged until the 18th century, when the village's natural springs, known as Streatham Wells, were first celebrated for their health giving properties. The reputation of the spa, and improved turnpike roads, attracted wealthy City of London merchants and others to lay out their country residences in Streatham.

Streatham's spa supply actually failed in 1792 but faced with ruin a new source was 'discovered' near by and seems to have slowed down the decline for some time after, even into the 20th century. According to some reports you could still get a bottle of Streatham water pretty much up to the First World War                                                    It is curious to note that while several spas near London have disappeared, that at Streatham still exists at the end of Wells Lane, now Well-Field Road, and the water is sold in bottles on the spot and delivered to town daily.

                                                                          Memorials of old Surrey John Charles Cox - 1911

Even as late as 1885 with both Tooting and Streatham beginning to grow appreciably in size and population the issue of water could be a source of friction between them, as seemed to be the case when a

... meeting [was] held in reference to the Southwark and  Vauxhall Water Company who are sinking a great well at Streatham which has had the effect of abstracting the water from upwards of one hundred private springs and wells in the parish of Tooting...

Journal of Forestry - 1885

I'm not sure what the final outcome was but I suspect the Streatham pump would have had to be limited in some way. Shades of a South London Manon des Sources!

However in the early 19th century, back in the small village of Tooting, it was obviously bad news that such a significant  resource as water was in the hand of a few individuals, and so the decision was made to break the monopoly, even if one of these wells, the property of a local apothecary, seems to have been an object of some wonder... Apparently it came up with such force that it gushed like a fountain to the height of a couple of storeys and presumably provided a very useful alternative source of income for the lucky owner!

Without looking through musty old documents and contracts of the period, you might never think it possible to find out much about the individual who actually dug the bore, but through the marvels of the internet I soon came across an important clue                                                                                                                    

The Mechanics Magazine of 1824 published an indignant letter from the very man who had dug the well at the 'coach-road side at Tooting'. This is significant as the memorial to the well is opposite The Mitre Hotel, a famous coaching inn that still has its stable block to the rear. It also ties in very nicely with the date given for the construction of the monument, 1823. He was apparently rather miffed that someone else was trying to pass off his work as their own...             

 John Goode was a professional well-borer with several patents to his name. He specialised in the London area but also went out at least as far as to Chelmsford in Essex. He obviously did a good job in Tooting and was presumably well-paid for his efforts.

There was also a helpful diagram  showing the rough strata of the London area that John Goode had to deal with and this was pretty much a clay basin with a chalk sub-strata. This chalk was the source of the purest and softest water and it was its sponge-like characteristic that was able to provide sufficient pressure to force water up the lucky apothecaries bore pipe.  Now however, thanks to their finance and John Goode's efforts the good people of Tooting were able to drink their fill at their own Parish Pump well. They were independent with a high quality water source filtered by huge chalk beds, and an occasion definitely worth raising a monument !

(*An artesian well is apparently one that does not require pumping, but which forces water up the bore tube on its own. Mostly this happens when the water level is suppressed by something like a layer of clay. When that 'cap' is pierced the water shoots up to find its natural level. So now we know...)