4 ms·

Deepest hand dug well in the world (2006)

87 points by nateguchi 9y ago

jstanier 9y ago
Nice to see my hometown on the front page. Saw the cover of this structure outside the Nuffield Health hospital a while ago and had no idea what it was. Well I'll be damned!
Jedd 9y ago
Can we please add a [2005] to the title? Though they themselves are confused about the history of the actual article: > Added to the site on 16-11-04 > This page was added on 22/03/2006. I lived in England for a few years. Coming from Australia, where we have precious little surviving historical structures, either pre or post white settlement, there's a weird combination of envy, surprise, and shock at the Brit's track record. The 'Lost gardens of Heligan'[1] are a good example, with a happy ending. Nearby, at Lyme Regis, a watermill[2] dating from the 1300's (perhaps a couple of centuries earlier) had, as recently as 1991, been been at risk from the local council of being pulled down and replaced with townhouses and retail outlets. Hearing that, while standing in a beautiful/historic/functional building that's 3-5x older than anything we had back home, was surreal. I appreciate the line needs to be drawn somewhere. There's an abundance of structures that I see around me each day that I'd be happy to see gone, and even if - perhaps especially if - they were still standing in a millennia, I'd encourage the demolition of. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Gardens_of_Heligan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Gardens_of_Heligan [2] http://www.townmill.org.uk/ http://www.townmill.org.uk/
- PoachedSausage 9y ago
  To be fair, most historical buildings of that age would be listed[0]. However there are plenty of buildings from 100 - 200 years ago that are not listed. For example, the last remaining building of a historic factory in the village where I grew up was refused listed status, it has since been distroyed by fire in a convenient 'accident'. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listed_building https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listed_building
  - Jedd 9y ago
    Yup, we've got that here in AU - but I gather the de-listing process isn't especially arduous, given the potential $-incentives for developers to push through. It seems to rely on the presence of motivated defenders, with sufficient time and resources - a big ask given what they're up against.
  - 7952 9y ago
    A lot of railway structures are not listed. Bridges are particularly threatened at the moment as they are not high enough to allow electrification. This is shame considering how historically significant these railways are. Network Rail are very relaxed about demolishing Brunel structures.
    - Boothroid 9y ago
      This is one thing I just do not understand about many of my countrymen. So often I seem to read about wanton destruction of precious places such as buildings, forest and so on. Some of the destroyers are demonstrably ignorant/moronic, but the worst are the intelligent but sociopathic cynics that wilfully destroy, almost always in the hunt for profit. Ugh. For example a property owner near me destroyed some greatly loved ancient woodland in defiance of legal protections on the woodland. His response to legal action is to sell the woodland - if there were any justice he would be forced to reforest it, and fined half his fortune or something equally fierce. We don't deserve to have nice things around when we let these people thrive.
emmelaich 9y ago
I love reading through the comments on these articles. A "Jonathan Brown" wrote a play about it: http://www.somethingunderground.co.uk/the-well/ http://www.somethingunderground.co.uk/the-well/
emmelaich 9y ago
The location: https://goo.gl/maps/mKxeTmhKktJ2 https://goo.gl/maps/mKxeTmhKktJ2
- prewett 9y ago
  Wow, they are less than 2 mi from the ocean and they had to dig 1300 feet to get water, including about 850 feet below sea level! That must be some pretty impermeable ground they've got.
  - gozur88 9y ago
    Makes me wonder if the water is potable.
13of40 9y ago
I think it would be interesting to send someone down there with a camera to see what's accumulated in the last hundred and fifty years. Based on the comments there's at least one piece of wood and possibly a dead nun...
ChuckMcM 9y ago
An amazing bit of industry. There was a home owner in Sunnyvale that hand dug a fairly large basement under his house over the years. When he passed and his heirs went to sell it they discovered it. It clearly wasn't up to code and the city had them seal it up in some way and add it to the disclosures when they sold the house. Apparently it started as a 'root cellar' to keep his vegetables cool during the summer.
- lostlogin 9y ago
  There was also The Hackney Mole Man. £100k of concrete poured into his tunnels. https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2006/aug/08/communities.uknews https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2...
uiri 9y ago
This reminds me of the deep well at Nuremberg Castle which is a measly 50 m (164 feet) deep. That on its own is deep enough that things take a noticeable amount of time to reach the water's surface. I imagine that it would take 5-10 minutes before you'd hear some water that was dropped down this one hit the surface.
- rurban 9y ago
  In old Europe we dug a lot of such old wells from hill tops down to the ground water level during the middle ages. Actually prisoners of war dug most of them. Hundred of meters usually. It secured water from being poisoned with dead animals, the usual tactics then. Hills in town centers were fortified to withstand longer sieges and rescue the town folks. Famous is eg. the well at the Königstein castle near Dresden, which was never conquered, with a depth of 152 metres. Such wells needed decades to be built. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_well
Boothroid 9y ago
I live nearby and recently discovered this piece of local history. I wish there were a way to open it to the public! For some reason I'm fascinated by anything subterranean. The Great County Adit is quite an incredible feat, the world's largest drainage adit, started in the 1700s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_County_Adit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_County_Adit Crazily enough people are still interested in exploring these places: https://www.aditnow.co.uk/community/viewtopic.aspx?t=8031 https://www.aditnow.co.uk/community/viewtopic.aspx?t=8031

87 points by nateguchi 9y ago

Nice to see my hometown on the front page. Saw the cover of this structure outside the Nuffield Health hospital a while ago and had no idea what it was. Well I'll be damned!

Jedd 9y ago

Can we please add a [2005] to the title? Though they themselves are confused about the history of the actual article: > Added to the site on 16-11-04 > This page was added on 22/03/2006. I lived in England for a few years. Coming from Australia, where we have precious little surviving historical structures, either pre or post white settlement, there's a weird combination of envy, surprise, and shock at the Brit's track record. The 'Lost gardens of Heligan'[1] are a good example, with a happy ending. Nearby, at Lyme Regis, a watermill[2] dating from the 1300's (perhaps a couple of centuries earlier) had, as recently as 1991, been been at risk from the local council of being pulled down and replaced with townhouses and retail outlets. Hearing that, while standing in a beautiful/historic/functional building that's 3-5x older than anything we had back home, was surreal. I appreciate the line needs to be drawn somewhere. There's an abundance of structures that I see around me each day that I'd be happy to see gone, and even if - perhaps especially if - they were still standing in a millennia, I'd encourage the demolition of. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Gardens_of_Heligan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Gardens_of_Heligan [2] http://www.townmill.org.uk/ http://www.townmill.org.uk/

PoachedSausage 9y ago
To be fair, most historical buildings of that age would be listed[0]. However there are plenty of buildings from 100 - 200 years ago that are not listed. For example, the last remaining building of a historic factory in the village where I grew up was refused listed status, it has since been distroyed by fire in a convenient 'accident'. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listed_building https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listed_building
- Jedd 9y ago
  Yup, we've got that here in AU - but I gather the de-listing process isn't especially arduous, given the potential $-incentives for developers to push through. It seems to rely on the presence of motivated defenders, with sufficient time and resources - a big ask given what they're up against.
- 7952 9y ago
  A lot of railway structures are not listed. Bridges are particularly threatened at the moment as they are not high enough to allow electrification. This is shame considering how historically significant these railways are. Network Rail are very relaxed about demolishing Brunel structures.
  - Boothroid 9y ago
    This is one thing I just do not understand about many of my countrymen. So often I seem to read about wanton destruction of precious places such as buildings, forest and so on. Some of the destroyers are demonstrably ignorant/moronic, but the worst are the intelligent but sociopathic cynics that wilfully destroy, almost always in the hunt for profit. Ugh. For example a property owner near me destroyed some greatly loved ancient woodland in defiance of legal protections on the woodland. His response to legal action is to sell the woodland - if there were any justice he would be forced to reforest it, and fined half his fortune or something equally fierce. We don't deserve to have nice things around when we let these people thrive.

emmelaich 9y ago

I love reading through the comments on these articles. A "Jonathan Brown" wrote a play about it: http://www.somethingunderground.co.uk/the-well/ http://www.somethingunderground.co.uk/the-well/

emmelaich 9y ago

The location: https://goo.gl/maps/mKxeTmhKktJ2 https://goo.gl/maps/mKxeTmhKktJ2

prewett 9y ago
Wow, they are less than 2 mi from the ocean and they had to dig 1300 feet to get water, including about 850 feet below sea level! That must be some pretty impermeable ground they've got.
- gozur88 9y ago
  Makes me wonder if the water is potable.

13of40 9y ago

I think it would be interesting to send someone down there with a camera to see what's accumulated in the last hundred and fifty years. Based on the comments there's at least one piece of wood and possibly a dead nun...

ChuckMcM 9y ago

An amazing bit of industry. There was a home owner in Sunnyvale that hand dug a fairly large basement under his house over the years. When he passed and his heirs went to sell it they discovered it. It clearly wasn't up to code and the city had them seal it up in some way and add it to the disclosures when they sold the house. Apparently it started as a 'root cellar' to keep his vegetables cool during the summer.

lostlogin 9y ago
There was also The Hackney Mole Man. £100k of concrete poured into his tunnels. https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2006/aug/08/communities.uknews https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2...

uiri 9y ago

This reminds me of the deep well at Nuremberg Castle which is a measly 50 m (164 feet) deep. That on its own is deep enough that things take a noticeable amount of time to reach the water's surface. I imagine that it would take 5-10 minutes before you'd hear some water that was dropped down this one hit the surface.

rurban 9y ago
In old Europe we dug a lot of such old wells from hill tops down to the ground water level during the middle ages. Actually prisoners of war dug most of them. Hundred of meters usually. It secured water from being poisoned with dead animals, the usual tactics then. Hills in town centers were fortified to withstand longer sieges and rescue the town folks. Famous is eg. the well at the Königstein castle near Dresden, which was never conquered, with a depth of 152 metres. Such wells needed decades to be built. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_well

Boothroid 9y ago

I live nearby and recently discovered this piece of local history. I wish there were a way to open it to the public! For some reason I'm fascinated by anything subterranean. The Great County Adit is quite an incredible feat, the world's largest drainage adit, started in the 1700s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_County_Adit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_County_Adit Crazily enough people are still interested in exploring these places: https://www.aditnow.co.uk/community/viewtopic.aspx?t=8031 https://www.aditnow.co.uk/community/viewtopic.aspx?t=8031