The custom of well-dressing which is centred around the Peak District of Derbyshire has already been mentioned on this website several times. Probably the most well known of these dressings is the one at Tissington,  a village which forms part of the estate of the FitzHerbert family who have owned it since 1465.

Here six wells are dressed for Ascension Day, 39 days after Easter, and remain dressed for a week. It is said that the wells were originally dressed as a thanksgiving for their pure water which, it was believed, prevented the villagers from catching the plague, alternatively the wells continued to provide water during a time of severe drought. Traditionally the Tissington well-dressings marked the beginning of the well-dressing season, but today the season can start earlier in the year, depending on the date of Ascension Day.

In 1748 a visitor recorded that in Tissington ‘we saw springs adorned with garlands’, which Fitzherbert told him was an annual commemoration ‘upon Holy Thursday [now more usually known as Maundy Thursday], the minister and his parishioners praying and singing over them’.  Thus it appears that at sometime the date of the dressings changed, and it’s probable that the style of changed.  More recently, since the 1830s the dressings have consisted of pictures composed of natural materials pressed into  upright shallow trays of moist clay, as shown in The Mirror of 20 May 1837, the earliest known depiction of a well-dressing.

In 2025, when Ascension Day fell on 29 May, an 11 a.m. service attended by various local dignitaries was held in the packed parish, after which the clergy-people and other processed around the various wells and offered prayers and a hymn at each one.  Unlike some similar events where people struggle with obscure hymns written long ago by local clergymen, all the hymns were well known.

Throughout the morning coach loads and cars full of people arrived, and visitors formed long queues for refreshments.  Throughout the day a video about the making and religious significance of well-dressing was shown in St Mary’s church.

Historical information mostly derived from Peter Naylor & Lindsey Porter, Well Dressing, 2002.

1 June 2025.