well, well, well!

Yesterday (26th June), during an on-going archaeological watching brief by the Trust at Abbey House in Colchester, a historic well was discovered. The watching brief is on groundworks for a residential development in the grounds of Abbey House. Abbey House is the large 19th-century house on the corner of St John’s Green road and Flagstaff Road, overlooking St John’s Green and the town. It is within the boundary of the town’s old army garrison and was once, apparently, the home of the commanding officer of the Royal Engineers. It is also within the walled precinct of St John’s abbey. (The walled town centre is built on a hill and the modern garrison was built on the ‘high’ plateau to the south of the hill, as was St John’s abbey.)

The well is in front of Abbey House, between the house and Flagstaff Road, so it is just outside the walled precinct of St John’s abbey. Therefore it must have been a public well, presumably to serve the people living in the St John’s Green area. We can’t date the well very well at the moment, but it seems likely that it is medieval in origin. The well had been capped, and there is an inscribed stone built into an outside wall of Abbey House stating that the well was 60 feet deep and that it had been capped in 1797 for safety reasons. Abbey House was built in about 1830.

The War Department bought the abbey grounds in 1860 and perhaps acquired Abbey House at the same time. The Royal Engineers would have been involved in the designing and building of the older 19th-century barracks at Colchester garrison, eg the nearby Cavalry Barracks which were built in 1862-4. Also No 4 Training Battalion of the Royal Engineers was set up in Colchester in 1939. Abbey House was part of the garrison until 2000, when the Army began to sell land and buildings in the former garrison for redevelopment; Abbey House, as part of the garrison’s Flagstaff complex of buildings (the original HQ of the garrison), was assessed as being a building of primary significance.

The Trust has conducted a massive programme of archaeological fieldwork on the former garrison over the past decade. The current watching brief is being undertaken by Trust archaeologist Don Shimmin.

The images show site contractor James and Martin Winter of the Borough Council looking at the well, and the inscribed stone, yesterday.

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