The St Ann’s Well Monument

Marriott Ogle Tarbotton was born in Leeds on 6 December 1834 and died in Nottingham on 6 March 1887. He was the Borough Engineer for Nottingham from 1859. He culverted the River Leen, a source of disease outbreaks. He also planned and oversaw the construction of the underground sewerage system for the city, the first outside of London. Tarbotton was responsible for the design of Trent Bridge and Papplewick Pumping Station, and he was the engineer to the Nottingham Gas Company.

When Mr. Tarbotton realised that Mrs. Blee’s house and St Ann’s Well would need to be demolished as part of the redevelopment of the area,  in 1856 he designed a significant brick monument so that the centuries old St Ann’s well would not be lost from memories. It was not possible to build this over the actual holy Well itself due to its significant size; the Well itself was still housed inside the lean-to of the main house at this time. Therefore, Mr Tarbotton built the monument at a cost of £100 on a prominent location and enclosed it within iron railings, the entrance being on the Wells Road. To gain an idea of the monument’s size the lady dressed in dark clothing on the photograph shown below standing directly in front of the supporting pillar and the camera, would be about 5 ½ feet tall making the monument about 6 meters in height.

The second photograph of the monument from a slightly different angle, shows a big house in the background. The house and gardens shown below are quite considerable in size, and was still being put to much use by growing many varieties vegetables. I made an extensive search of Wright's Trade Directories in an attempt to trace the people who lived here. The only significant house at the top of the Wells Road was number 368 on the list of St Ann’s street names in the 1883 Wrights Directory which was occupied by Mrs. Sarah Man, a greengrocer & shopkeeper. This information is listed under The Wells Road [East side], and the house numbers were descending as if you are walking down the road towards Nottingham town centre. The large house in this photograph is indeed on the left hand side of the road. It is quite possible that the “Man family’ were the very last occupants of the property before demolition took place to make way for the new railway.

In 1887, the site of the monument was demolished to make way for an embankment and viaduct to carry the Nottingham Suburban Railway, which was completed in 1899 and remained in use until 1954. The viaduct was dismantled in 1961 and map evidence shows the present Gardeners Public House (now derelict) to have been constructed by 1962. This photograph shows St Ann’s Station some distance away from the viaduct.