Well Dressing

I had never heard of this until the day before, but a video in our B&B informed us about Well Dressing. This is a Derbyshire tradition, where wells are decorated with flowers.

They make wooden structures, then soak them in the river so the wood is really wet, then fill it with wet clay and then in go the flowers. The moist wood and clay keep the flowers fresh.

Only that morning, after watching the video, we stopped at a small town just to admire the view. Upon walking across the bridge, Helen spotted the wooden well dressings soaking in the river. See them in the water in the photo below.

Then, on the way home today, we passed a town that had its well dressing happening, there were cars parked everywhere. We detoured in to have a quick look. Very pretty.

It was just such a coincidence that within 24 hours we learned about this, saw the well dressing for one town in the river in the morning, and saw the well dressings on the wells in another that same afternoon.