Healing Well (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NN 780 010
Archaeology & History
Which one is Tammie Blair’s Well?
It’s difficult to work out the exact position of this lost well, even from Alexander Barty’s (1944) description of the place. There are several unnamed ‘Wells’ on the early OS-maps very close to where this one was said to be, but in the end I’m relying on (sort of) educated guesswork regarding its precise location. Please forgive my ineptitude here…
That aside, it’s another water source that has long since gone and is only remembered thanks to Mr Barty’s excellent local history research in the first-half of the 20th century. He told us:
“This well stood beside the path which leads from the Bridgend up the right bank of the Allan to the Haugh. A drawer of water at one time had to go down about 15 steps to the well. It may have been constructed after the making of the railway, as previously a little burn flowed from the Bridgend west of the railway down to the Allan, the lower part of which is still open next Willowbank House. This well may therefore have been made by the Railway Company to supply dwellings in Bridgend. It took its name from a man, Blair, who had charge of the railway gates there prior to the erection of the iron footbridge over the railway line.”
It may be the ‘Well’ marked lower-centre on the above 1863 OS-map above. But I aint sure.
References:
- Barty, Alexander B., The History of Dunblane, Eneas Mackay: Stirling 1944.
Acknowledgements: Huge thanks to the staff at Dunblane Library for their help.
© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian
