Botallack Well

The D.C.L.I. Museum at Bodmin has recently published ‘No Red Coat For Me’ the memoirs of Edwin Collins, a soldier in W.W.1. Edwin grew up at Carnyorth and as a ten year old in 1907 recalls a well, as in your photogragh, outside his front door that was used by local people. He refers to the well as a peath – curious I Googled peath and saw that another reference for it is at Sennen and in this case is a well that is actually within the house and a subject for a Newlyn School artist called Carey Morris.

My mother would relate stories of going to the peath as a child. I think this usually referred to a place were water was to be had from a hole in the wall type of spring, but perhaps it was also used more generally for water sources. We got our water from the village pump in Carnyorth until the mains arrived in 1960/61 and often walked past this well when out mushrooming, blackberrying or on our way for a cliff walk; I never heard wither referred to as a peath but there were other places with springs that were so called.

P.s. I ll look the book to which you refer and it is interesting to hear of an older usage. My grandmother and her siblings grew up in Carnyorth but a few years younger than Edwin and talked of the pump, but perhaps they called it peath before the pump was put there, too late to ask now.

I believe that an abridged version of the book was read out on Radio Cornwall recently. My copy (a Christmas present) was bought at the DCLI Museum shop. Should there be a problem in obtaining a copy the Museum has a website and contacts.