Greenhorn’s Well set into the high wall as it changes from Windsor Road to Gartcows Drive. The ancient spring once emerged at the top of the small lane known as Well Road that is just below the railway.
Apparently this was said to have been a place of pilgrimage called Christ’s Well in the early Christian era although most historians are of the opinion that it has been mixed up with a different spring. Another dodgy legend linked the waters to a cave visited by William Wallace, one of many such hideaways to have sheltered the great hero.
Circa 1824 a group of enthusiasts in the town formed a club with the aim of restoring the well and it was probably them who had the water piped down to the main road.
The inscription advises that they provided the stone basin which in 1904 was reset within a handsome red granite surround by the Town Council. There was a metal cup on a chain and in times gone by older people would take a daily drink and claiming it was full of health giving minerals like iron. Others who tried it claimed it tasted pretty foul, more like sulphur than iron.
A few years ago when the health and safety lobby gained power the water was cut off and the cup was removed. I hope that this well doesn’t suffer the same fate and that it remains here to remind us of an earlier, simpler age.