Wellhead memories

THE WORK CURRENTLY underway at St Peter’s Pool will enhance the setting of this ancient water source, reputedly fed by seven underground springs and one of the oldest artesian wells in England. Volunteers from the Bourne Green Gym are tidying up the banks and surrounding area and creating a nature reserve nearby which will attract a whole host of additional flora and fauna.

The pool has been here since time immemorial and around which the town sprang up, now forming part of the Wellhead Gardens and it is this spring, or the stream that flows from it, that gives Bourne its name from the Old English word burna which was common in the early Anglo-Saxon period and is found in its modern form, particularly in Scotland, as burn meaning stream or spring. Many other English place names have a similar derivation with burn, borne or bourne as an ending to denote a river or stream in the vicinity.

But St Peter’s Pool has not always been treated with the reverence deserving of such antiquity. Early in 1870, there was considerable excitement when it was learned that the police were investigating a grisly discovery that had been made there when boys playing on the water’s edge found part of a child’s body and crowds soon flocked there thinking that a murder had been committed.

The entire Wellhead and the river backwater of the mill stream were searched but nothing further was found and it was later established that the portion of the body recovered was an arm (from the shoulder) of a newly-born infant, contained in a box with a stone attached to it by a string, and was found only a few feet from the side of the pool.

That evening, a young man went to the police station in North Street and gave a statement admitting throwing the box and its contents into the water and explaining what had happened. He said that a friend who was a medical student have been on a visit bringing with him the arm of the baby in question for the purpose of some experiments but on returning to medical college had inadvertently left it behind him. He then wrote to his friend urging him to bury it in the garden but he had decided, unwisely, that it would be better to dispose of it by throwing it into the Wellhead which he had done a week before it was discovered. A police spokesman told the local newspaper afterwards: "From the information thus volunteered, and from inquiries we have made, there can be no doubt that there has been no child destroyed, as was supposed when the discovery was made, and it has been decided to take no further action."

Twenty years later, there were complaints that many pet owners were finding the pool a convenient place to wash their dogs and even to dispose of their bodies when they died, a practice that townspeople found unacceptable and there were protests to the authorities that this was likely to contaminate the water supply.

These were the days before the formation of the local councils that now run our affairs and the Wellhead at that time was under the control of the Rural Sanitary Authority. The Bourne Union, administered by a Board of Guardians, was mainly responsible for all other local matters, including the workhouse, later St Peter's Hospital and now demolished, which overlooked the Wellhead. The master, Alfred Yates, was one of the principal objectors, and his complaint was supported by Joseph Davies, headmaster of the Boys' Council or Board School, now the Abbey Road Primary School, who was also correspondent for one of the local newspapers.

On Friday 10th July 1891 he published a report saying:

Mr Yates is perfectly justified in complaining of the nuisance of the owners of dogs and other animals utilising the Wellhead as a bath for their charges. The water is the direct source of supply for the workhouse and we are only surprised that the complaint was not made before. We venture to say that the most enthusiastic temperance advocate would find his principles somewhat shaken if, suffering from the thirst that attacks most poor mortals in sultry weather, his only local options lay between a glass of Wyles's ale [from Bourne Brewery] and a glass of Wellhead water, in which dogs big and dogs little, dogs woolly and dogs smooth, with the dirt and fleas upon them, had previously left these superfluous concrescences in solution.

There are still a few liberty-loving citizens surviving who tenaciously cling to the idea that rivers and streams are the cemeteries that nature has provided for their ailing cats and dogs and there, with an appended brick by way of an epitaph, they consign their remains. We would mildly suggest to these patriots, the prejudice of their other fellow citizens to having in their cheery cup of tea a canine or feline infusion. Seriously speaking, it appears to us a mere matter of common sense. Whatever the law may be, the Board of Guardians will be only doing their duty in apprising the police of the matter and effectively preventing, by any reasonable means, the contamination of that most important of all hygienic regulation - a supply of pure water. Probably the offenders have erred without due thought. We believe they will quite see the force of our appeal and scrub their dogs at home.

The Bourne Union met on July 9th to consider the various complaints and the guardians recommended that the Rural Sanitary Authority take the necessary action to stop the washing of dogs, precautions that included the erection of notices around the pool warning offenders.

About this time, there was also a move to convert the lake into an open air swimming pool but the scheme was rejected by a public meeting because the drastic alterations involved would make a picturesque spot unsightly and ruin the habitat for wildlife such as kingfishers and other rare birds.

During the ensuing years, St Peter’s Pool became a much loved beauty spot, a favourite place for walks on Sunday afternoons in summer and photographs which survive from that period show an idyllic scene of peace and quiet.