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Well Dressing Buxton Well Dressing The first thing you notice when you come across an example of Well Dressing is the colour. It reaches out and grabs you by the eye and you can't help but take a closer look. Then you notice the design, the scene, and for a moment it's just a pleasant picture. Slowly the realisation dawns that you're looking a flower petals. Thousands of them. Each carefully chosen for colour and hue, then individually placed to form an intricate mosaic. Your admiration leaps up a notch as the full glory of the finished work and the hours of skill and dedication that must have gone into creating it, fuse together in your imagination. With its feet firmly planted in pagan times, the ancient custom of Well Dressing takes place throughout summer every year all over Derbyshire, and in Buxton in July. Whilst the early Well Dressing ceremonies paid homage to the goddess of water (or 'she who dwells in the sacred grove'), Arnemetia, thanks are now given through the same custom to God, for the gift of water. The designs are elaborate and decorated with flower petals and other natural materials (straw, grasses, seeds etc.) to form a colourful mosaic over a base of clay. Usually, but not always, the designs have a religious theme and may depict a scene from the bible. Occasionally, local scenes are shown or maybe something that celebrates a particular local anniversary. Because the delicate and intricate designs are made from natural materials, they have a very short life. They are made by a team of people who work consistently throughout the few days prior to the unveiling of the well dressing and the blessing ceremony. This is the opening ceremony in a week long celebration that culminates with the Carnival Procession through the town. Clay is mixed with water to form the correct consistency, the drawn design is pricked out into the clay, then petals and other materials are pressed into place to form the mosaic. The clay must be kept damp otherwise it would crack and the petals fall out. Accompanied by music from a brass band the various wells, now dressed in all their splendour, are blessed in a procession. In Buxton there are two dressed wells: St. Anne's Well in the Crescent, where you can sample the famous buxton water, and the Higher Buxton Well at the Market Place. Also associated with the dressing and blessing of the wells, is the annual selection of the Festival Queen, Rosebud and attendants who play a major part in the carnival events. |
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