Well Dressing In Chesterfield
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Bringing Well Dressing Skills to Town
We were delighted to have been awarded a Derbyshire Makes grant to showcase the art of Well Dressing in Chesterfield as part of Derbyshire Makes Festival.
Well Dressing is an ancient English custom and is particularly associated with Derbyshire, where local communities decorate wells, springs, and water features with large hand-made pictures made entirely of natural materials such as petals, leaves, and seeds pressed into clay.
For our session, we had a large board on which we did the Crooked Spire of Chesterfield design. We also had mini version workshops for people to create their own individual Well Dressing. Visitors to our stall were fascinated by the history and loved having a go themselves.
A local Men in Sheds group made a board out of wood to hold the clay, it is then soaked for a while so that it keeps the clay moist whilst on display.
The clay was ‘puddled’ (made wet) in a bucket with water to moisten it and was then placed on the board, smoothing it flat with a rolling pin or plastering trowel depending. The clay is regularly covered with suitable materials to stop it drying out.
The design is made on a piece of paper. The design is often something being commemorated that year or relevant to the village or town. and can be part of the discussion when making the initial preparations. It is then laid on the clay and ‘drawn’ on by pricking out the outline.
The design outline is then marked with suitable materials, such as peppercorns, seeds, coffee beans, black wool or barking. Marking in this instance was done using barking (small pieces of wood) - particularly effective as the design was of a building.
We then ‘colour’ in the design, rather like painting by numbers using natural materials. These can be of different colours and textures and depend on what is available at the time.
‘Petalling’ is a particular technique used to provide large areas of colour where petals are used. Neat rows are created, like roof tiling, with the row above slightly overlapping the one below to allow rainwater to run off without damaging the design.
Doing a well dressing in April was challenging (the earliest on general display is 2nd week May) as not many suitable natural materials are around. However, for buildings, a good tip I discovered on the day from the Holymoorside group is to use soaked brown holly leaves with the spiky bits cut off. They gave a splendid impression of bricks. Otherwise, we did struggle a bit and had to resort to buying some flowers for the sky - chrysanthemums (hydrangeas usually best for this). The group enjoyed the challenge and the dressing held up surprisingly well.
Overall, we were delighted with how the day went, in spite of our concerns leading up to the event. We had a number of prior bookings and people soon joined in the workshops to have a go themselves. We've even had a couple of people get in touch to get more involved with well dressing in Chesterfield so are hoping the idea may take on and the tradition in Chesterfield may be resurrected. The dressing was put on display at the newly renovated town pump in the main market square with the agreement of Chesterfield Borough Council for a week after the Derbyshire Makes event. It attracted much interest according to the market staff and we were pleased with how well it lasted.
Anyone wanting to have a go at Well Dressing in Derbyshire in September or find out more about it can contact Margaret: spitalcemeterytours@gmail.com
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