Approximate Location:
OS Grid Reference: SJ 84327 78117
Latitude: 53.17.59N , 02.14.12W
One of the very few locations in the village of Alderley Edge to appear in the Weirdstone Trilogy is the De Trafford Arms, which lies on the corner of Congleton Road and Chorley Hall Lane. Gowther and Bess Mossock only went to the village on Fridays to deliver their farm produce (Weirdstone, Chapter 1: Highmost Redmanhey; Chapter 6: A Ring of Stones) and much of the action of the novels took place in more rural locations.
However, in Gomrath, Chapter 2: The Well the Mossocks, Colin and Susan were in the village when Gowther spotted a story in the Alderley & Wilmslow Advertiser about “the discovery of what appears to be a thirty foot well, during excavations in front of the Trafford Arms Hotel“. Gowther’s curiosity was aroused due to local folklore: “As long as I con remember it’s always been said there’s a tunnel from the the copper mines comes out in the cellars of the Trafford.”
Gowther and the children then headed up to the De Trafford Arms, which was described as “a public house built to Victorian ideas of beauty in half-timbered gothic.” The three were a tad disappointed after Susan peered into a three inch gap in the flagstones but could only see a round shaft with a pipe sticking into it. Gowther summed this up when he said: “Happen it’s nobbut a well… Pity : I’ve always liked to think theer’s summat in the owd tale.”
The article in the newspaper revealed that the well was discovered during works carried out by Isaac Massey and Sons. This firm were a real organisation who appeared regularly in the pages of the local press from 1879 until 1946 and were variously described as builders and coal merchants.
In Gomrath, Chapter 5: ‘To A Woman Yt Was Dumpe’ Colin found a reference in the churchwardens accounts for 1617 that described “Mr Hollinshead and Mr Wright were at Paynes to confine ya devil yt was fownde at ye Ale House when ye new pipe was being put down and it did break into ye Pitt.” He and Gowther then discussed the possibility that the opening of the well may have released the entrapped Brollachan which Atlendor, Uthecar and Albanac were hunting in Gomrath, Chapter 3: Atlendor.