The old Roman Well…honest…

Every garden needs a water feature, and it should be accessible to the small beasts. How to achieve this in the cloister has been something of a puzzle, but eventually we came up with a plan. Of course, Rumwoldstow has an old Roman well still in place, doesn’t it?

The plastic pond liner and wall foundation

The first step was to purchase a round pond liner and for the mighty-thewed Brother Julian to embed it in concrete. Yeah, I know. ‘Authentish” is our watchword!

Starting the well wall
A wild gazebo protecting the stone mason

Because of rain, Al erected the gazebo to protect Chris the stonemason. It ran off overnight, however (i.e. blew down).

And now it looks like a well!
With two archways for hedgehogs and frogs

Doesn’t it look smart? The water level should be around ground level, so although it’s too high for a real well, you will look down at it and I think the overall effect will be pretty good, especially once some ferns and things have grown in. I’ll put some blocks in the water inside the two archways, to make it easy for beasts to climb out.

Cast blocks for the archway

In other news, work is underway on the gatehouse (also, of course, Roman). Al is casting blocks for the archway pillars, and Chris is starting to lay out the guardrooms.

Gatehouse foundations

Yeah, breeze blocks aren’t very authentic, but the cast stone arch will look great and we’ll probably render the breeze blocks. After all, one must render unto Caesar…< ducks >