Furness Foray

With a good forecast after all that rain I went on a little adventure with two things in mind ... checking out some wells and going to see the dune pansies and orchid spotting at Sandscale Haws.... https://www.blipfoto.com/entry/2058701504956597990

I thought freespiral might be in need of a well boost although I’m not sure the ones I found were holy.

The first was Bean Well near Baycliff. It is thought it might be a corruption of the Latin ‘Bene’ as it was considered a good well. The moral of today’s hunt was ‘ask the men who cut the hay ... or, in this case the men who mow their lawns’. I’d never have found either if I hadn’t. I knew Bean Well was near the shore because it was used to supply fresh water to the horses that carried ore down to the barges. I followed the shoreline until I saw the outflow onto the beach and then followed it into dense undergrowth. I’d forgotten my machete but once I’d got a wet foot, stung by nettles and fallen on a few thistles I managed to find where a strong flow of water emerged into what looked like a brickwork channel. The man I asked said his place had a stream and that there were others nearby but that they all dry up except this one which has never been known to.

I cycled inland to Gleaston, passing the impressive castle ruins and then arrived at the village knowing roughly where to look but there wasn’t a hint of it anywhere. When I asked the next lawn mowing man he pointed me in the direction of more dense growth, bushes, brambles and ivy. There was a gap and a rather forlorn but substantial well house and there was Mickle Well, another good clear water source gently bubbling up from the ground.

As for holiness, who knows. The area is littered with history with many ancient settlements and then there is Furness Abbey nearby. There are other wells that seem to be lost sadly but the village of Urswick nearby has a huge tarn which apparently started out as a well until the villagers got a bit chippy and asked for a bigger one with more fresh water. The vicar who had apparently conjured up the well after a chinwag with the Lord got a bit fed up with his ungrateful flock and so summoned up a biblical flood that drowned the village and all its inhabitants. That taught ‘em.

I cycled back to the van and headed over to Sandscale for a late stroll on the beach and to have my Uist smoked salmon snack. It’s such a spectacular spot with the backdrop of the fells and so many wildflowers at this time of year. Lots of dune pansies but I didn’t see many orchids and a group of youngsters had managed to sit on a patch. I went to pick up the rubbish they’d left, cigarette papers and bottles. I reeked of weed as I carried it back to the car park...I nearly went to catch up with them and remonstrate that if they’re not more careful they might end up being a Tory minister.

With the dazzle of the evening sun on the sea and with Millom across the bay and Black Coombe beyond, it has to be Norman Nicholson’s, ‘Sea to the West’,

When the sea’s to the west
The evenings are one dazzle –
You can find no sign of water.
Sun upflows the horizon;
Waves of shine
Heave, crest, fracture,
Explode on the shore;
The wide day burns.
In the incandescent mantle of the air.

Once, fifteen,
I would lean on handlebars,
Staring into the flare,
Blinded by looking,
Letting the gutterings and sykes of light
Flood into my skull.

Then, on the stroke of bedtime,
I’d turn to the town,
Cycle past purpling dykes
To a brown drizzle
Where black-scum shadows
Stagnated between backyard walls.
I pulled the warm dark over my head
Like an eiderdown.

Yet in that final stare when I
(Five times, perhaps, fifteen)
Creak protesting away –
The sea to the west,
The land darkening –
Let my eyes at the last be blinded
Not by the dark
But by the dazzle.