Wishing on Gainey's Well (From Stroud News and Journal)

Wishing on Gainey's Well

GAINEY'S Well, which provided the town with its first clean water supply, is steeped in history and mystery.

No-one knows where the water comes from, or for how long the well has existed.

So far, June Edgar, who owns the spring at the top of town, has traced it back to 1744, when would-be entrepreneur Richard Ardunel bought it from the Lord of the Manor.

But Ardunel - who by all accounts was something of a 18th Century Del Boy - made the fatal mistake of installing wooden pipes.

When the pipes rotted and sprung leaks, he opted for cheap and cheerful repairs, plugging them with kneaded bread.

Unsurprisingly, the doomed enterprise bankrupted him, and he was forced to sell up to tradesman Benjamin Gracebrook in 1769.

Mr Gracebrook replaced wood with lead and constructed a large round basin which served as a reservoir on the Cross behind the White Hart Inn, where Stroud police station now stands.

For an annual fee, affluent households at the top end of town benefited from Stroud's first clean water supply.

Over the centuries the well's fortunes may have trickled out of the history books, but in modern times it has been rented by Severn Trent Water and Dairy Crest, who bottled it under the name Pembrey.

It seems unbelievable that the well is not a listed building - but it is something that June, who lived down the lane from it as a child, has always taken for granted.

"It's always just been there and I never paid it much attention," she said.

"I was born a few doors down and I played there as a child.

"So it's really strange to me when people are so excited by it. But you do get swept up in their enthusiasm."

June and her brothers John and Ken Young, and her nephew Daniel Young were too busy running K Young & Sons - the family engineering business - to worry about ancient wells.

But when Dairy Crest was taken over by an Irish company, they received so many offers from companies hoping to buy the well that they began to wonder what all the fuss was about.

"I thought, I don't know anything about bugs in water and all the things that could possibly go wrong," she said.

"People said they couldn't believe we were installing all the machinery, but that was the easy part. We have been doing that in other peoples' factories for years.

"Regulations for bottled water are far more strict than they are for tap water, because tap water has chlorine in, which kills everything.

"We have to test every day to make sure the water is pure.

"We also have inspectors coming in every few weeks to check we are testing properly. So it's not just a case of sticking water in a bottle."

"We are lucky the water is so naturally pure. Supposedly there's an underground cavern that pushes it to this point. "

"In the 18th Century, they built all the tunnels from the source - which is phenomenal.

"I can't imagine how they did it. It would be interesting to do a carbon test at some stage and see how long it's been travelling."

June is intent on trying to trace some of the missing jigsaw pieces in the history of Gainey's Well.

"We would love to know more about it," she said.

"An elderly lady wrote to me saying 'I used to live at your address, my father was a policeman and he used to guard the well'.

"I wrote back to ask what he was guarding it from. But she died before I found out."

The well holds many secrets, but its past is far from murky and its future looks pretty clear as well.

At the start of the month, Slad Spring Water was launched. Already, it has attracted clients from as far away as Jersey, and as close as the Water Warehouse in Nailsworth.

The water itself can be found in offices and gyms in and around Stroud under the brand name Gainey's, and, with the trend for buying local produce, it could soon be coming to a supermarket near you.

Do you know anything about the history of Gainey's Well? Call SNJ Reporter Alli Pyrah on 01453 769423.