Carved from a single gritstone block, the trough in the centre of Allendale is fed by a cast-iron pipe set in a stone retaining wall. Around it, ivy-leaved toadflax, still bearing mauve flowers, tumbles from its roothold between loosely mortared joints. Fallen leaves shine through two feet of gin-clear water.
The remains of a bucket stand, now a thin loop of metal, are suspended over the surface, a reminder of the importance of this source of clean drinking water in preventing cholera. The trough was installed by the philanthropist and former miner Isaac Holden. Lettering inscribed on an arched panel to the right reads: Isaacs Well AD 1849.
I cross the marketplace to the churchyard, relishing the warmth of November sun on my back. An obelisk dedicated to Holden stretches tall above the other memorials. The low angle of light slants over its mossy base, illuminates threads of ballooning spiders and silver curls of rosebay willowherb. There are the sounds of late autumn: the yack of jackdaws, a starling imitating a blackbird, a robin’s thin song, the chatter of sparrows picking through a nearby gutter.
More than 600 people paid to erect this monument to Holden’s “untiring diligence in originating works of charity and public usefulness”. Forced to find alternative work by illness and the closure of a nearby lead mine, he walked the valleys and moors selling tea. At the same time, driven by Methodist beliefs, he sold his poems and copies of “his likeness”, a daguerrotype postcard that cost six pence.
That image would be displayed on mantelpieces all over the area, from isolated farmsteads to fell-side miners’ cottages (perhaps even on what is now mine, though there is no record of this). His fundraising provided for a penny savings bank, chapels, a clothing fund, a hearse and a hearse house.
The 36-mile Isaac’s Tea Trail begins at the well and traces his route beside the East and West Allen rivers, crossing heather moorland on old trackways, linking farms and villages. Past lime kilns and quarries, a Roman fort and lead mines, the footpath dips in and out of layers of history and landscape, a celebration of an individual who made a difference.
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