It's Well-Dressing Season! 

The custom of 'dressing' or decorating wells is only found in or near Derbyshire, and is the art of decorating springs and wells with pictures made of natural, growing material.  It only occurs during the summer months. Now it's possible to go and watch this fascinating process.

First the design is worked out on paper, then pricked through onto trays of damp clay.

Here the  borders are painstakingly created using green seeds from a pine tree and this year's rhubarb seeds.  Closely packed heads of statice (known as the Everlasting Flower) are pushed into the clay to form raised purple cushions. The black outline is crumbs of coal, that hopefully will sparkle in the sunshine.

Meanwhile on another tray of clay Christ's halo is created using yellow stalks.  The dark areas are one year old rhubarb seeds (brown), and two year old seeds (black.)  The flesh is tiny scraps of moistened onion skins.  Christ's robes will be made from the individual petals of delphiniums and Sweet William.  The hair and beard are to be the wool from a local Jacob sheep.

The whole project will take many days and involve the whole community.

In this particular little village many of the Well Dressers had been involved in the projects for the last 20 years.

The assembled boards will remain by the well for around a week, frequently sprayed with water, particularly if the weather is hot, to prevent the clay from drying out.  Two other local wells are  also to be dressed including one by the local children. 

It is certainly a spectacle well worth seeing

And what did the finished Well Dressing look like?

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