The Wishing Well at Hollinshead Hall

The “Wishing Well” or fountain building beside the ruins of Hollinshead Hall is a very interesting that seems in its present state to be a 19th Century folly, partially constructed from older or possibly ancient elements. Fields in his booklet tells us the well house was restored by a local clergyman.

The structure is said to be built around five natural springs, but this seems a bit odd as the springs would be so close together as to be one. The current building is old in itself but probably dates from the last iteration of the old Hollinshead Hall around 1800 or older. There is a single stone room, partially build into the hillside behind and a tall external wall to one side with a carved stone shield and spout.

The building has a vaulted stone ceiling with a large stone ball suspended in the centre - such elements are said to inhibit the formation of water condensation of the ceiling and can be found in other places. The far-side of the room from the doorway features two stone basins at floor level in niches that extend beyond the back of the exterior wall and into the hillside.

The central part of the back wall features an odd collection of stone elements that look incongruous to the rest of the structure. Square column bases, rounded miniature columns with scroll tops, ill fitting with a stone arch above and a flat, rectangular area that is said to have held a plaque at one time - no details of which remain.

The centre-piece of the “fountain” being a large and crudely carved lion head spout in the Roman style of the 1st to 3rd Century CE and known colloquially as the Laddie. The “Laddie”, stone columns and other elements are presented on a stone pier the probably contains the plumbing for the old fountainhead. There is a small stone-lined cistern to the rear of the building at ceiling level that perhaps fed the fountainhead when functional.

There is an 18th Century cherubic fountain known as the “Spewing Laddie” in Blackburn, so there maybe some confusion in the published text of Dugdale, Fields et al.

I wouldn’t like to say whether the Hollinshead Laddie is an ancient fountainhead or a 18th Century replica but the carving is very crude and not at all like the rest of the building, the rounded columns look more modern, but still old and don’t appear to match the square column bases too well.

The floor of the building has several narrow grooves that are similar to those seen at other venerated springs or “Holy Wells” such as that at Halliwell where old photographs show a series of iron levers that seem to control the flow of the water down the grooves and into a nearby stream.

Very little is known of the history of the well house and it has been suggested that elements could come from the older portions of Hollinshead Hall or the earlier manor house but it’s also possible the springs were a local landmark a long time before that.

Created: 8  May  2019  Edited: 29  November  2023