Yew Tree Well, the Well Dressing that I help out on is a real family affair. The centre of operations is in a barn behind a couple of large farmhouses where 4 generations of the Carr family live, in fact they have been in Tissington for exactly 99 years. Christopher Carr helped out on this well as a child and saw the Well Dressings restarted in 1950 after the war. In 1966 Barbara his wife got involved and then their children as soon as they were big enough to perch on a stool and add the petals. Their son Edward soon had his new wife, Margaret, involved (it probably formed part of the marriage ceremony – “…in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, well dressings each year, till death us do part…”. After only two years Margaret then took over the designing of this well and has done so for the past 19 years.
Now their children help out, Catherine the youngest (10 years old) is doing her own well dressing which will go on the trough at the bottom of the car park and the others help out. During the past couple of days James has been working with us in between revising for his AS exams. But the family extends further with Stephen, Margaret’s father coming over every day from Chesterfield – he has spent the last 1 1/2 days inserting parsley into the clay and Great-Grandma has helped by removing all the bits of wood off the black knobs.
Tissington Well Dressings begin on Thursday with a service to bless the wells at 11am. The wells all remain up until the evening of Wednesday 27th. Signed parking is available, with a extremely modest charge and entry is free with donation boxes around the village. To read about Tissington Well Dressings Day 1 click here.
PARWICH.ORG 
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