Interludes: The Cenote
...in a matter of weeks frogs appeared and set up home. It was always damp on the cap and after rain the water rose considerably: an ideal nursery for tadpoles. Just letting in the light had a wonderful effect. Fern spores drifted invisibly down and clung to the damp cracks in the bricks. Whatever else might refuse to grow, ferns never fail. It was a beautiful, delicate little cave, baby ferns sprouted everywhere, the frogs and froglets cavorted in the water, then climbed into the pipes to explore. The local cats tiptoed across the planks and didn’t fall in, stopping to stare at the baby froglife evolving below....
Sylvia West tells of the rediscovery of a long-unused well, and of the astonishing need which it now serves. And if you don't already know what a cenote is you will have to read through to the last paragraph of this wonderfully satisfying column to find out.
High up on the wall of my little house is a large brick showing the date of its construction: 1881, the same year that the world’s first electric street lighting was installed in the Surrey town of Godalming, three miles away. The row of four sturdy cottages was built by a local firm for its employees. There are another four opposite, and many years later six more houses completed the cul-de-sac.
In the beginning there were probably privies at the bottom of the long thin gardens, and when I first came to live here over twenty years ago the coal man would carry sacks of coal down the passage ways and across the rights of way to the coalhouses. Now, of course, there’s central heating and a few conservatories and all mod. con. Unless you are a dedicated gardener it is virtually impossible to remove over a hundred years of planting and cultivation in the gardens. There is no problem at the front where there are no gardens and cars park cheek by jowl; everyone has hanging baskets or window boxes full of geraniums and petunias and lovely bright green conifers that will one day be too big for the pots they are in.
The back gardens are all pretty and cared for these days. Generations of bluebells and buttercups burst into life every spring. They are the original gardens dwellers of long ago. When I first came to live here my neighbour’s garden was so over planted and overflowing that you couldn’t see anything at all. Even from my bedroom window it wasn’t possible to identify anything apart from three sheds, and they were hemmed in by trees and bushes and climbing roses, with glimpses of tall lupins and honeysuckle and wigwams for runner beans to live in.
George had been born in the house, an only child who lived there now with his two wives. (I’ll explain.) After his mother died and as he could do no more than make a pot of tea, he advertised in the local paper for a wife, an extraordinary leap of faith and imagination for a middle-aged man who had never even had a lady friend: it was a necessary move, you see, in order that George should not die of starvation.
Against all the odds a suitable spouse was found and they were married. Immediately afterwards the new wife told her husband that her sister would be coming to live with them as well. The ménage à trois was established. George pottered in the garden and survived well for many years, well fed and clean shirted, and after he died “the girls”, as everyone called them, sold up and moved away.
That chapter was closed and when Peter moved in there was no likelihood that either the house or the garden would stay as they were. Of the three sheds, the smallest was nearest to the house; it was the first to be demolished, and all the contents were burnt at the bottom of the garden. I stood by the fence and looked on as Pete jumped up and down and said that it was hollow under the floor: “perhaps it’s an Anderson shelter!” he said, and he proceeded to dig it up to find out. It was quite springy, no trouble at all to put in the pick axe. And to everyone’s surprise and alarm Peter suddenly disappeared through the hole he had made until only his head and shoulders were visible. It was a well! Fortunately for Pete it had been capped long ago, so he couldn’t actually fall straight through to the centre of the earth.
We onlookers stared in disbelief at this slightly oval hole in the ground, the wooden cap covered in debris, the sides made of rich brown bricks from the local brickworks: a cool dark space that hadn’t felt the warmth of the sun for many years. When had George put up his sheds? How long had the well been lost to the water seekers? It was on neither my house deeds nor Pete’s, though it was on the deeds for number four and they had long since given up hope of ever finding it. There was a lot of speculation and fanciful guesswork about when it was last used, for ours is a very old Surrey village and the local wells would have been of great importance.
The challenge of clearing it out and making it into an attractive garden feature fell to Pete, since he had found it. Children and animals must not be able to fall in, that was for sure, but the initial excitement was bound to subside as Pete was a busy man with other jobs to attend to. In fact, the novelty of the discovery quickly wore off. I found some old planks to put across as a barrier so that we could not be accused of endangering life and limb.
Several earthenware pipes discharged into the well and in a matter of weeks frogs appeared and set up home. It was always damp on the cap and after rain the water rose considerably: an ideal nursery for tadpoles. Just letting in the light had a wonderful effect. Fern spores drifted invisibly down and clung to the damp cracks in the bricks. Whatever else might refuse to grow, ferns never fail. It was a beautiful, delicate little cave, baby ferns sprouted everywhere, the frogs and froglets cavorted in the water, then climbed into the pipes to explore. The local cats tiptoed across the planks and didn’t fall in, stopping to stare at the baby froglife evolving below.
The years passed and the flora and fauna of the well became ever more luxuriant. From time to time we discussed over the fence the merits of building it up, or surrounding it with a stone seat, or even putting a pretend well-head with a Jack and Jill bucket swinging from a chain. (No, of course we didn’t.) The boundary between our two houses ran straight through the middle, so there had to be consensus on what to do.
In the end, and after more than ten years, Pete decided to sell up and move, so he built a neat surround out of the local Bargate stone and put a fancy iron railing across the water. On my side there is now a lovely semi-circle where I put pots of conifer and box and geranium. The frogs have long gone, or is it perhaps, just that no-one can see them any more? I can’t even see down to the water; the curtains of fern fronds wave gently over the secret life below, and now they reach out over the wall, taller and thicker every year, curling their dark green arms around the clay pots.
One day, someone is going to question the existence of the well on their house deeds, but for now, for me and my new neighbours, the slugs and snails that set out in the night to consume our petunias and young green leaves find themselves, in the cold light of morning, flung into the well: a tiny plop signals their arrival in the depths. Some people sprinkle salt on them, some let them drown in a dish of beer, but we deliver them to the troglodytes under the canopy of ferns.
A necessary sacrifice, don’t you think, for the sake of the spring flowers? The Maya used to throw jade and gold into the deep green waters of the cenotes - flooded caves in the forest: gifts for their gods. I have neither gold nor jade, only food, but I’m sure it will suffice.
