There are a number of wells around the Doffcocker Delph and Delph Hole quarries, together with some interesting old waterworks remains.
The two wells (now lost) that were in the area of Doffcocker Delph are very near the two shafts of the former Doffcocker Colliery, I don’t know whether they are contemporary but references to the location of the wells is lacking while the colliery continued to be worked. I would assume that either coal or water where discovered while searching for the one or the other.
Further down the hill was an old quarry, Delph Hole, that was later used as a reservoir. However, there are no streams or water sources above ground in the area. Either on the oldest maps I can find, on the modern digital maps, nor any visible sign of anything resembling a stream. The ground all around is “made ground” or infill from the post-industrial landscape so it is difficult to be certain, but I know the area well and there are no streams on higher ground that could lead here.
I believe the quarry was filled with water sourced from below ground, possibly drained from levels exposed by the Doffcocker Colliery. Adjacent to the quarry above the southwest corner there is a small brick valve house that for many years contained an old iron wheel that turned a metal rod going directly down into the ground. I never saw the base of the rod as there was always rubble on the floor. I was talking to my older brother the other day and he reminded me there was once a wooden door and I think I remember that too. The valve house is constructed very much like the proverbial “brick shithouse”, common in the back gardens of traditional terraces years ago. You could still see part of the metal cross bar the held the iron wheel not so long ago but the wheel and the rod have been gone since the 80’s.
Close to the valve house was a large concrete square that I was always told was a mine shaft. Where the ground had eroded away around the edges of the slab you could push small rocks under and hear them fall a long way down. The concrete cap was broken around 2013 and you could see down the shaft that I now believe was a well or syphon associated with the reservoir. An iron pipe can be seen entering the shaft near the bottom on the north side but I couldn’t see any exit. There is another fragment of pipe on the floor of the shaft but I believe this has been broken off from elsewhere. You can see the country rock at the bottom of the shaft is saturated with water but there doesn’t seem to be any in the bottom. There are a few bricks in the bottom of the shaft, fallen from above but I am not sure if other debris was pushed in when the shaft was capped.
It seems logical that the valve house controlled some flow of water and that from the pipe on the north side water could come from the area of the mine and wells to the north. It’s possible this was constructed originally to drain the mine tunnels of water, or it was constructed later to channel underground water to the reservoir.
There was an identical brick building in the field across from the houses on Boot Lane, the building had no floor and you could climb down a few iron rungs probably to a depth of about two or three metres. A side tunnel led off to the east - the direction of the first building - but it was only accessible when I was a kid and I didn’t go far in. There is some brick rubble in the soild where the building stood, it looks like it was demolished when a flower bed was built on the other side of the hedgerow. Interestingly the building stood directly inline with the site of the old Boot Well, now beneath the middle of Moss Bank Way.
One of the streams entering Doffcocker Lodge is also roughly inline with the well and the second brick building. Maybe water was sent below ground from the reservoir along the line of Boot Lane before turning south at the second brick building, along the same direction as the old well and into Doffcocker Lodge.
There is actually another small stream in the field below Boot Lane, I am not sure where it issues from or exactly where it goes. It can be found easily by crossing the field in snow for you are sure to step into the little ditch. As far as I know the stream goes from roughly the direction of the old reservoir then snakes across the field towards the area I mention above, maybe this is all that feeds into Doffcocker Lodge. The stream is covered for parts of its course and seems to be exposed just in places across the field. I have no idea where the water could come from as I mentioned earlier there seem to be no streams at all on the higher ground.
There is a modern water installation on the hill above, close to another, even older mine shaft. At times in the past a few other strange tunnels have been accessible some of which are large and seem to be of brick very much like the Delph Hole well shaft.
This shaft isn’t shown on any maps or listed anywhere I’ve seen.
