Approximate Location
OS Grid Reference: SJ 855 780
Latitude: 53.29.91N Longitude: 2.21.90W
After spotting the Wizard public house earlier in the afternoon of their first visit to Alderley Edge the Wizard’s Well was Colin and Susan’s second clue towards the The Legend of Alderley (Weirdstone, Chapter 2, The Edge):
“…the children came upon a stone trough into which water was dripping from an overhanging cliff, and high in the rock was carved the face of a bearded man, and underneath was engraved :
DRINK OF THIS
AND TAKE THY FILL
FOR THE WATER FALLS
BY THE WIZHARDS WILL“
Garner, A., 1960 (1989 edition), The Weirdstone of Brisingamen. William Collins / Lions. London. p21.
After their curiosity is aroused by these two sites they later ask Gowther to tell them about the wizard and his story (Weirdstone, Chapter 3: Maggot-breed of Ymir).
According to Alan Garner, in the 1978 television documentary The Writer’s Workshop: Places and Things, the well and its carvings were made by his great-great-grandfather Robert Garner in the nineteenth century. He was also responsible for creating the Wishing Well and Druid’s Circle as part of a group of features intended to engender a romantic landscape on Alderley Edge created for its landowners Lord Stanley and Sir Humphrey de Trafford.