Staying with last week’s theme of St Mary’s church, the discovery of a crumbling well fuelled gossip of an underground passage leading to the church.
ANOTHER DEATH TRAP DISCOVERED.
“Mr. Ald. Bettle having noticed that some of the brick pavement in a passage at the rear of his chop in St. Mary’s-street showed unaccountable signs of ‘settling,’ he called in a workman with the object of having the uneven surface made good. The man remarked that the ground sounded as though it were hollow, and acting with caution he found that a six-foot rod went down into space without meeting resistance. Mr. Richardson surveyor, to the Newcomb estate, of which the property is parcel, was at once informed, and measures were promptly taken to clear up the mystery and to remove all danger. A cavern 32 ft. 6 ins. deep and roughly 12 ft. wide was discovered, containing five feet of water. The cavity had long ago been in four feet on the west side by three ‘stepped’ flat arches with chamfered edges, and on the east side by a single arch, also chamfered. These sprang at the south end from a depressed arch running from east to west in the face of the south wall of the huge opening. All the arches are built of a remarkably hard stone, not unlike ‘Barnack rag,’ but less coarse than the specimens met with in ‘outside’ work which has stood the storms of centuries. News of the discovery soon travelled, and people glibly talked of a subterranean passage leading to St. Mary’s church! The fact is, it had merely been a well. Many loads of foundry clinkers have been thrown in, and a useful cellar will now be made of the place. Beans of oak resting on the arches had become rotten. It is lucky that the discovery was made in time, for there has been constant traffic over the spot.”
The Stamford Mercury, 25th October, 1901.