Healing Well: OS Grid Reference – SD 8695 4412
You’re a bit spoilt for choice in terms of how your reach this spot, high upon White Moor – which is south of Barnoldswick, west of Salterforth, northwest of Foulridge, north of Barrowford, or northeast of Blacko. Whichever route you end up taking, you’re going uphill onto the heights near Weets Hill – and find the old trackway which bisects White Moor and has the rather tell-tale name of Lister Well Road! It’s roughly halfway along the route, right by the trackside.
Archaeology & History
History and folklore here have long been silent (though I aint checked the Annals of Barrowford, which may prove useful). A local land-owner told us that the original trough had been uprooted a few decades back when the gas- or electricity-board (he can’t remember which) did some work hereabouts and uprooted the stone trough into which the waters ran and, for sometime, caused the complete destruction of the supply. But its waters eventually re-emerged from the Earth, trickling into the grassy drainage line on the southern-edge of the track before going under the wall and down the moorland slope.
If you like a good walkabout with good views to behold, get y’self up here and have an amble. Tis a damn fine place, with a lot of forgotten history embedded in the landscape.
© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian