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Ludwell Spring |
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On the side of the road between the village and the Bluebell Railway
station lies a small pond and horse drinking trough. Fed from iron rich
veins the waters are said to have curative effects especially for animals.
During the hardest drought this water supply has never dried up and was the
main supply for the village before piped water was fed from the new Hollywell
waterworks a
hundred years ago.
Take a look at the old map and you will see that in olden days the water
used to spill into the road and down the hill to the river at the bottom.
Now it is constrained in a culvert under the road.
Unfortunately the spring and pond fell into disrepair but a small
dedicated team of villagers now regularly clean and service the pond. We think that the water babbling from the rock makes this one of the most
peaceful places in the area. On a hot summers day it is a wonderful place to
rest and think.
Nick Turner was added the following information...
What the site omits to say is that, until comparatively recently (the
50s at least), the water flowed eastwards along the top of a field
before swinging downwards into Flaggy Pond. The miniature ‘gorge’ that
brought it into Flaggy can still be seen beside the footpath. Flaggy
was/is also fed by the outfall from the Rectory Pond.
This was done originally to
augment the flow of water to the Mill. The main source of water was from
Broadhurst Lake via a ‘canal’ that led from the corner of the lake nearest
the village, past Rushy Bottom and under Mill Lane. The spring from Bill
Tester’s garden joined it there after flowing down through Mill Wood as it
does today and another ‘canal’ (still there) from Flaggy completed the water
supply.
Jimmy McBriarty was the last
person I can remember operating the mill (for the Clarke family, of course,)
but, as it flowed along the top of the field, the Ludwell water gave the
village a ready source of water cress.
I was very interested in
your website and photographs of Ludwell, and the spring. Ludwell was my
home from 1940 to the death of my father, Cyril George Rossi-Ashton in
1979.
Ludwell had been much
altered from the clap-boarded cottage in the photograph – we were told
during WW1, though this is uncertain. The spring was fenced from the road by
a decorative iron chain – I can’t remember the pump and the horsetrough. We
were uncertain as to whether we owned it or not, but the stream from it was
certainly on our land until it turned to run below our boundary trees.
During the war, we kept
chicken and rabbits in a fenced off area at the bottom of the Garden, and a
henhouse near the spring had a semi-rotary pump taking water from the
stream, which I coaxed into action. We had moved into Ludwell in 1940, - my
fathers firm in the City was burnt out in the fire blitz, and more or less
at the same time our house in Woldingham was damaged by a bomb. These two
events meant that the Head Office moved to Haywards Heath, and my father had
to move close enough to travel to it. (He was vice-chairman, with my
Godfather, Bernard Westall being chairman. He had moved to Tanyards, about 1
˝ miles away).
My father had been a
member of Woldingham Home Guard, and following the move joined the Horsted
Keynes unit – as did I, when old enough. I remember doing Guard duty in what
I believe was the Bakery.
I was called-up in 1944,
and didn’t return to Ludwell (apart from on leave) until 1948. I always
loved the place, but it was not easy to heat in some of the very cold
Winters! Originally we rented Ludwell, buying it at a later date.
Oddly enough, my Uncle,
Charles Jonas, bought the Mill House at some point, though the mill was
never running I hope some of this may be of interest to you.
A. Rossi-Ashton. |
