Posted by Peter Hyland on August 19, 2013 at 09:55:40 user Peter_H.
In Reply to: Re: Dick’s green rushes – what were they? posted by Tom Napier on August 18, 2013 at 14:51:01:
The plant Tom describes may be the ‘Scottish Rush’, which has very thin stems and chestnut-brown flowers and is found on stony moors in Scotland (all info from McClintock & Fitter). The Great Woodrush is found mainly in woods and mountain rocks all through the West of Britain. Dick’s rush might be one of the true rushes (Juncaceae), but these tend to grow almost in water or in very wet places. The woodrushes grow in drier places.
This leads to something which has always puzzled me. It is easy enough to work out a way of supplying lakeside houses with water, just a question of logistics, but how did water get to Titty’s well, bearing in mind that it is quite a way up the fellside? The nearby beck had dried up, so where was the water in the well coming from? Some sort of aquifer presumably, but surely the Camp near High Topps was in the Zone of Aeration and well above the Zone of Saturation? If the beck had dried, why hadn’t the well?