23rd December, 2006
Daniel Defoe, the author of "Robinson Crusoe" and "Moll Flanders", spurned the chance to see one of Wigan's burning wells.
The famous 18th century novelist toured the country, probably in the years 1724-1726, and produced "A particular and Diverting Account of Whatever is Curious and Worth Observation," which he called "A Tour Thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain."
He states:
"...not that I had not Curiosity enough, if I had been satisfied it was valuable, but the Country People, who usually enlarge upon such things rather than lessen them, made light of this; and so I cool'd in my curiosity."
He does, however, give a lengthy description of the well from "Mr. Camden's Continuator".
A little earlier than Defoe, a remarkable lady named Celia Fiennes, the daughter of a Cromwellian colonel, also toured the country on horseback. Her writing is less academic than Defoe's, but the quaintness of her spelling and naivety of her observations make the descriptions of her journeys fascinating.
In 1698 she visited Wigan and described a visit to a burning well:
"2 mile off Wigon towards Warrington...is the Burning Well which burns like brandy; its a little sorry hole in one of the grounds 100 yards from the road that comes from Warrington to Wiggon, just by a hedge or banck, its full of dirt and mud almost but the water continually bubbles up as if it were a pott boyling which is the spring or several springs in that place; nevertheless I felt the water and it was a Cold Spring; the man which shewed it me with a dish tooke out a good quantety of the water and threw it away and then, with a piece of rush he lighted by a candle that he brought in a lanthorne, he set the water in the well on fire, and it burn'd blewish just like spirits and continued a good while..."
There were at least three burning wells in the Wigan district, two at Hindley and one at Hawkley.
The location of the well given by Celia Fiennes suggests that she visited the one at Hawkley. The Wigan - Warrington road passes through the district and the northern part of Hawkley lies about two miles from Wigan town centre. The well's exact location is now unknown.
The 1849 Ordnance Survey map unequivocally marks a "burning well" at Hindley near the old Grammar School, now the Teachers' Centre. The second Hindley burning well was in Derby Lane. (now Darby Lane). It is mentioned in the 1740's by James Stirling and confirmed by a later description from 1835.
Celia Fiennes found the phenomenon unexplainable. It seemed to her that the water itself was burning. She tries to explain it in this way:
"I apprehend its a sort of unctious matter in the earth and soe through its veines the springs run which causes it so to burn..."
Science, of course now explains the phenomenon in terms of the ignition of methane and other associated gasses which were formed by distillation of rotting organic matter during the formation of the coal forests. The "bubbling" of the water witnessed by Celia was not the water boiling as she supposed but inflammable gasses escaping from the underlying strata.
Alan Davies' excellent article in Past Forward 37
(Adobe reader needed)
(external site)
More about Daniel Defoe's journeys
(external site)
More about Celia Fiennes' journeys
(external site)