Journey to the Centre of the Earth – Well Nearly!

Here is a bit of social history that will, I think, astound you! This really is ‘history from below’ – the story of a well whose depth into the earth was greater than the height of the Empire State Building, (and that is not the astounding bit…) hand dug by inmates from the local workhouse using nothing more than hand tools! No, not a story from the pen of Charles Dickens, although it does have a particular Dickensian feel to it, but a true-life Victorian saga that involved a cost-cutting exercise that, frankly, bordered on madness and the brutal exploitation of the town’s poorest.

It started in the1850s with Brighton Corporation’s plan to build a new workhouse at the top of what is now Elm Grove and an industrial school, two miles away, in Woodingdean. Warren Farm Industrial School was specifically for the children of the poor whom, it was considered, should not be kept in the workhouse with the adults. The aim of the school was to teach its juvenile inmates “the habits of industry” and relieve them of “the bane of pauperism”.

The Guardians of Brighton Corporation who espoused these lofty goals did not, however, intend to spend much money on them! So, when the tricky question of how to supply the school with fresh water was raised, they rejected the idea of having a private company pump water uphill from the local waterworks (where Saunders Park is today) and instead looked for a cheaper option.

They came up with an audacious plan to sink a well for use by the school and the new workhouse and use labour from the Dyke Road Workhouse to do it. Of course, the Victorian workhouse system was designed to provide work (and shelter) for those who had no means to support themselves. The inmates were expected to work, usually manual tasks such as breaking granite with a mallet, grinding animal bones by hand to make fertiliser or picking oakum using a nail; but digging a well with a shovel was quite another thing.

In addition to reducing labour costs, the Guardians saw another, ‘hidden’ advantage: by making it known that, regardless of health, age or gender, all workhouse inmates would be required to undertake some aspect of the well’s construction, they would deter people from applying to the workhouse for poor relief in the future! Work commenced in March 1858, with a team of 45 men working around the clock, with candlelight as the only source of light, to sink a six-foot-wide shaft 400 feet through the hillside down to the water table. When they reached the targeted depth there was, however, no sign of water, so they continued digging, lining the walls of the shaft with bricks as they went.

Within the cramped confines of the well shaft, the men experienced the most appalling conditions; they had to descend rickety ladders, dig, load buckets and lay bricks while winchmen stood on platforms scraped into the side of the shaft, passing spoil up and bricks down. Hundreds of feet below ground, the air was suffocating, men worked naked because of the heat and air pipes, pumped by steam engines, were sent down so that they could breathe. At the bottom of the shaft men worked six-hour shifts, those mid-way down worked ten and those at the surface worked for 12 hours. No health and safety record exists, but there is a report of one winchman falling to his death during construction.

After two years of this digging nightmare, the shaft had reached a depth of 438 feet and no water had been found. Fearing that they had made a miscalculation, the contractors advocated for a lateral chamber to be driven 30 feet northwards, but this was not successful either. The next move was to dig further lateral tunnels westwards and eastwards, but these too failed.

By this time, what was meant as a financially prudent option, was looking increasingly like an expensive folly; costs were mounting and so was public ridicule – some said the town was constructing an alternative route to the Antipodes and others described the endeavour as “a great bore”! So, in one last attempt to stave off humiliating failure, the Guardians sanctioned the construction of a further four-foot-wide shaft at the end of the eastern tunnel.

Around 10.30pm on Sunday 16th March 1862, a bricklayer noticed that the earth he was standing on was moving. In total darkness, as water began to rise beneath them, he and his colleagues scrambled up the ladders. The well was so deep it took the workers a terrifying 45 minutes to reach the surface.
After four years of incredibly dangerous, backbreaking work they had finally struck water. Church bells were rung to signal the news, and a crowd of people gathered to watch the first bucket of water being raised to the surface. Over the following days, Brighton-wide rejoicings took place, celebrating the successful completion of the well - a hand-dug shaft 1,285 feet deep (390m) 850 feet of which was below sea level. As soon as a reliable water source was established, plans were put in place for Warren Farm Industrial School to open and, on the 14th August 1862, 77 boys and 65 girls moved from Dyke Road Workhouse to take up residency. The foundation stone for the Elm Grove Workhouse was laid on the 11th April 1865, but by the time the building was finished in 1867, Woodingdean Well was, unbelievably, no longer operating! Despite the massive cost, the blood, sweat and tears of the workhouse labourers and the promise that it would ultimately save the town a fortune in water rates, the well was abandoned after just four years in favour of mains water supply.
Notwithstanding its short life, Woodingdean Well has gone down in the annals of history as a major feat of construction and remains to this day the deepest hand-dug well in the world.