Rea Way Markers: Fēowerhyrnewæter

Way Marker Type: spring - natural/manmade - in situ/moved/lost

Previous marker.

Although the Hazel Well, if it ever existed as a natural spring, seems to only gently seep to the surface now, there is another natural spring nearby. If you follow the River Rea downstream to near Ten Acres (a recent housing estate named after a once rural field) there is a delicately trodden path leading away from the river, and guarded by a twin tree. Following the path, you find yourself at a small brook, seemingly still water, but gently murmuring when inspected closely. On following it back, you arrive at a pool of water, whispering more than murmuring, and then nothing but a mud-filled trench which turns eastward under an arch of bowing trees, bathed only in dim light in the surrounding wild growth. 

The tiny rivulet (you can barely call it a brook, as it flows shortly after its emergence into the Rea) was drawn on the tithe maps of 1838, and took its route further up the muddy trench to the four corners of four adjoining fields: Bull Meadow, The Square, Lower Field, and The Five Acres. These four corners were also crossed by an old footpath from near the site of the possible Hazel Well to Dads Lane. The water route, on this map or any other I've seen, has no name. 

The spring emerges at the site of the blue dot, then
follows the field borders west then north to the Rea.