Little John's Well (Hampole)
By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2013-07-10. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2019-04-05. Photo: Gerald England
The now derelict Little John's Well is located on the NE side of Doncaster Road (A638), 1.3 km NW of Hampole, a little west of Barnsdale. The name is first recorded in an 1838 MS Tithe Award where it appears as "Little John's Cave & Well", while on an 1841 Ordnance Survey map the locality is indicated as "Lt. John's Well"[1] The well water used to fill a stone trough that had the name "Little John's Well" incised on the front. What remains of the masonry at the well is grade II listed, described as follows: "Remains of seat. Probably C17. Limestone slab standing upright and with recessed panel on one face with the initials 'AL' crudely inscribed beneath a carved device of a 5-petalled rose in a shield. Irregularly-shaped head"[2] In addition to the name "Little John's Well", the 6" O.S. map published in 1854, based on surveying done in 1849, includes the legend "Trough" and shows a structure which is clearly of the same shape as that shown on Gerald England's photos (see below), thus indicating that the stone structure was certainly in place by the mid-nineteenth century.[3]
The site is now dry as the water has been diverted to nearby lakes, and the inscription, clearly visible on the photo in Mitchell (1970),[4] can no longer be traced. Near the well was the site known as Little John's Cave, but this appears to have been filled in. The locality is very close to Hazel Lane Quarry, an active limestone quarry.Template:PnItemQry
Gazetteers
MS Sources
- 1838 Tithe Award; cf. Smith.[1] Little John's Well is not listed in the 1838 tithe award for Hampole online at the Genealogist, Piece 43, sub-piece 190, image 288-90 (subscription required), but it is probably incomplete as it runs to only three pages.
Printed sources
- British Listed Buildings: Seat at Little Johns Well.
- Megalithic Portal: Little John's Well
- Mitchell, W.R. The Haunts of Robin Hood (Clapham via Lancaster, 1970), p. 4. Photo.
- Smith, A.H. The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire (English Place-Name Society, vols. XXX-XXXVII) (Cambridge, 1961-63), pt. II, p. 44; pt. VII, p. 73.
Maps
- 1841 O.S. map; not seen, but cf. Smith.[1]
- 25" O.S. map Yorkshire CCLXIV.14 (1893; surveyed 1891)
- 25" O.S. map Yorkshire CCLXIV.14 (1906; surveyed 1904)
- 25" O.S. map Yorkshire CCLXIV.14 (1932; surveyed 1930)
- 6" O.S. map Yorkshire 264 (1854, surveyed 1849)
- 6" O.S. map Yorkshire Sheet CCLXIV.SW (1894, rev. 1891)
- 6" O.S. map Yorkshire Sheet CCLXIV.SW (1907, rev. 1904)
- 6" O.S. map Yorkshire Sheet CCLXIV.SW (1930, rev. 1930)
- 6" O.S. map Yorkshire Sheet CCLXIV.SW (1950, rev. 1948)
- O.S. 1:25,000 map SE41 (1953).
Background
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Smith, A.H. The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire (English Place-Name Society, vols. XXX-XXXVII) (Cambridge, 1961-63), pt. II, p. 44. Little John's Well is not listed in the 1838 tithe award for Hampole online at the Genealogist, Piece 43, sub-piece 190, image 288-90 (subscription required), but it is probably incomplete as it runs to only three pages.
- ↑ British Listed Buildings: Seat at Little Johns Well.
- ↑ See Maps section below.
- ↑ Mitchell, W.R. The Haunts of Robin Hood (Clapham via Lancaster, 1970), p. 4.
All is not well at Little John's Well, Hampole / Gerald England.
Little John's Well, 1967 / Gerald England.