For centuries the wells here provided clean water for those living nearby.

This water wheel was installed in the 1800s to power a pump which supplied water to the Palace for domestic use.

However, in the 1870s Bishop Hervey’s children caught typhoid fever. He suspected that contaminated water had caused their illness. He may well have been right – most of the city’s wells were eventually classed as unfit for drinking because liquid sewage from cesspits leached into groundwater sources.*

*From a sign board next to the pump.