This week we delved into century-old archives to find the answer to your Ask Examiner question - what’s the story of the ancient wells below the market place?
You’ve probably walked over it thousands of times without realising there’s a hidden series of wells below the cross.
It’s thought the plan was to create a facility for people to collect water - but the scene was abandoned when the workers realised they couldn’t get the water uphill!
According to a March 1906 edition of the Weekly Examiner, workmen found troughs, or wells, covered with high stone arches during excavations for new public underground lavatories in Huddersfield’s Market Place.
The article refers to a “curious controversy” around whether the structures were a failed piece of engineering.
The theory that the old wells were a mistake was supported by a pamphlet, ‘A Short History of Folly Hall and Huddersfield about 80 years ago’ which contained this description: “Near where the West Riding Bank now stands was an old public-house commonly called the Doll Hole; opposite here, in the old Market Place, a large reservoir was constructed, into which the Bradley Spout as to be brought.
“Then there were to be four pumps, one at each corner of the Market Place, from which the people might fetch water.”
There followed an amusing description of what happened next.
“The digging of the hole...proceeded right merrily, was walled around, and afterwards arched over, and when all was ready the astounding discovery was made, that water would not run up-hill.
“The project was therefore dropped. The large vault is, however, there still, and when Huddersfield becomes a bonding town, it may come in useful.”
The 1906 article goes on to say that the story may, or may not, relate to the market place as they could not be sure about locations.
It concluded: “Meanwhile some of the masonry has been destroyed to make room for the new works, and some remains to be covered out of sight again as before.”
Later that month, readers told the newspaper that the market place excavations had uncovered a modest water tank, and not wells.
An S Carter, of Road Side, Netherton, told the paper a gentleman had told him of the existence of an underground passage or tunnel running from the Market Place, along under the Imperial Hotel and all the way to a house in Chapel Hill.
The letter, dated March 1906, concludes: “One wonders if the arched vault and the statement of the tunnels have any connection with each other?”
Letter writer Alfred Donnellion, of Victoria Street, Moldgreen, said an old gentleman had told him that the “vault” beneath the Market Place was constructed at a time when various wells and springs formed the only supply of drinking water.
A project to bring water to a pump in the Market Place failed due to a “slight gradient from the Square to the Market Place,” said Donnellion.
Mr H Moss, of Willow Lane East, added: “I note that the so-called wells are being built up and rapidly laid from view.
“No satisfactory explanation of the origin seems to be forthcoming. Why have they been called wells at all, and how do we know they were originally used as waterworks?
“For the casual observer, they looked more like tunnels or underground passages.
“Have these tunnels been examined, or does anyone know where they begin and end? If not, in the writer’s opinion, a thorough examination ought to be made with a view to ascertaining the state of what appears to me to be a death trap.”
* This article was put together with help from both the Huddersfield Local History Library and Huddersfield Local History Society.
