Water

 Wold Newton sits in a dry valley, a tributary of the Waithe Beck valley which runs from the top of the Wolds (close to the sources of the Rivers Bain and Rase) and winds to the North Sea at Tetney Lock.  

Although a dry valley today, a ditch runs, intermittently and culverted most of the way, from the south end of the village, not far from the Grange pond, to the Ravendale Valley, and thus to Hatcliffe and the Waithe Beck.   It follows a route along the back of the gardens of the South Farm cottages, disappears for the rest of the length of the village before recommencing at the North Farm running through what used to be the horse fields parallel to, and to the east of, the road to East Ravendale.  It therefore seems reasonable to postulate that there was once a chalk stream along the valley bottom - why else would anyone settle here?  The likelihood is that with the advent of open field ploughing, that stream was soon silted up by soil washed into the valley bottom.  The remnants of ridge and furrow  evidence ploughing on the steep hillside right down to the bottom of the valley.  Top soil in the village gardens is typically 18 inches deep; most of the cultivated fields have have very little at all.

Whilst there are plenty of people in the world today who have to walk great distances to find water, one imagines that when the stream disappeared those living in Wold Newton would have looked at other options before setting off over the hill with a bucket to walk the  2.5 miles to Waithe Beck as it flows through Swinhope and Thorganby.  Without running water, there are two options; collect rain water or dig for ground water.  We know that in Wold Newton people did both as a remarkable amount of evidence remains from Victorian times and the early decades of the 20th century.

A well was recently uncovered in the garden of Shepherd's Cottage.  It is unpleasantly close to, and slightly down hill from, the cottage's cess pit which probably dates to the early 20th century, so it presumably pre-dates that.  Another was revealed by the parched vegetation in a recent drought year, and confirmed by scratching the soil away for only a few inches,  in the field behind Meadow View. 

Several of the houses and cottages have underground rain water storage tanks, including the Roost, Garthman's Cottage, the Manor, the Manor stables, Glebe Cottage and the Rectory.  They are generally cylindrical brick built tanks lined with mortar about a yard wide and 3 yards deep, although the Rectory has a splendid brick vaulted affair of grander dimensions.  Glebe Cottage and the Rectory both have galvanised tanks in the roof to which the water was hand pumped from the underground tanks.  As both of these houses were built in the 1930s, this means of storing water must have continued well into 20th century.  Similarly, the Manor has a tank in the roof next to one of the maids' bedrooms to which water was pumped from the rain water tank in the ground outside the kitchen.

Reliance upon rainwater in the east of England is precarious, being subject to the risk of drought.  In 1907, a fight broke out between residents of Wold Newton and the neighbouring village of Hawerby sparked by the latter coming over the hill to help themselves to Wold Newton water when their own supplies had dried up. The squire, William Maurice Wright, noted in his diary, with anxiety, that the level of water in the Manor water tank was down to only 4 inches.  

Despite that, it took bullying from Matthew Addison, as a condition of his sons taking on the tenancies of the  Wold Newton farms (an indicator of the balance of power at the time between landowners and tenant farmer), to persuade the squire, with much protest, to install a piped water supply from a borehole in 1910.   A borehole was sunk that year by Smith Well Drillers from Waltham.  Its geological profile is attached below.   Nonetheless, when he built the current stables in 1912, although by then the village water system had been installed, he put in another tank to catch the water from off the stable roof, just in case.

From the borehole, the water was pumped up to the reservoir at the top of the grass field on the other side of the road and then returned to the village by gravity.   It was originally a J Wallis Titt wind pump but was latterly powered by electricity.  The brick shed which housed it is still in the field (Pump Close) just to the south of Keys Cottage.  Pipes were installed to the farms, the Grange and the Manor, and to stand-pipes along the village street, one of which can be seen in the photograph of the old Parsonage, standing in the street outside the Chapel.  To supply the livestock in the fields, a second J Wallis Titt wind pump took the water up to a smaller reservoir in what is now Martin's Wood.

On the other side of the road, a small bunker at the back of the Top Barn collected rain water from its roof and supplied a trough for the cattle wintered up there.  It was Ray Winfarrah's first job of a morning, to walk up the hill ("through drifts 'n' all") and hand-pump the water from the bunker into the trough; the pump still hangs inside the now dilapidated barn.  Otherwise the only water in the grass fields on the west side of the road is in the pond by the roadside.  In the 1950s, the tenant farmer, George Dale, got one of his men, George Lammiman, to dig out the pond further into the field, using a Fergie tractor and a fore-end loader, to make a more reliable drinking supply.   Only later were the field troughs installed, supplied from the farm main.  The pond work was time well-spent, it still being the only source of water for stock in the prolonged freeze of 2010, when ice up to eight inches thick was broken to find water for the cattle, the farm supply having frozen up.

The Rectory had its own borehole, housed in a shed which more recently served as a home for chickens.

Water was only put into the cottages with the installation of indoor lavatories and baths with the aid of council grants in the 1950's.  The water system was eventually sold to the Cleethorpes and District Water Board, which may have installed electricity to make the supply more reliable.

The first 'mains' water came to the village in the 1970's following a tractor fire at North Farm in one of the barns.   The Fire Brigade complained that there was insufficient water pressure/supply for their pumps to function properly; the barn burnt down but it was the catalyst for the installation of mains water.

Have a look at the album below to see many of the features mentioned above.