History of Ash and Ridley
from Earliest Records to 1957
Compiled by Dorothy G. Meager on
behalf of Ash and Ridley Women's Institute
Page 111
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The
Well, Ridley |
The Well
At the roadside, near St. Peter’s Church, in the tiny but
ancient parish of Ridley, stands a mute testimony to a 150 years old
tragedy. It is Bowdler’s Well which was sunk by the Rector of Ridley,
the Rev. Thomas Bowdler, after he and his wife had lost four young
children, who were taken ill after drinking stagnant water.
It is said locally that the well was 350 feet deep, but
this may be an exaggeration. At any rate, the parishioners of Ridley
were assured of fresh water until modern plumbing made the well
unnecessary and it was concreted over. The super structure with a
thatched roof was added by Mr Raoul H. Foa when he acquired the Holywell
Park Estate in 1902.
The Rector was the nephew of Dr Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825)
the philanthropist, who added a new word to the English language –
"bowdlerize". In 1818, Dr BOWLDER published his
"Family Shakespeare", a work
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in ten volumes in which he has effectively censored all words
and expressions that he considered unfit to be read aloud in a family.
He was vigorously attacked by the critics and the word
"bowdlerize" which was coined at the time, came to be
associated with false squeamishness. Dr Thomas Bowdler was living in
Ash for a time, but there is no record to tell us which house he
occupied.
His nephew, the Rector of Ridley, helped him while he was
preparing his expurgated Shakespeare and his similarly treated version
of Gibbons "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" – so the
old well at Ridley, the cover of which was re-thatched in 1954, the
bi-centenary year of Dr Bowdler, takes us quite a long way back into
history.
The Rev. T. Bowdler, who had charge of the adjoining
parish of Ash and also of Addington, as well as Ridley, later became
Rector of Sydenham and a Prebendary of St. Paul's Cathedral. |
The Well, Ridley - watercolour
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