Man Discovers 16th Century Well…Under His Sofa!
Wednesday, September 5th, 2012
We’re pretty sure that some of you have been in a house or a building with sagging floorboards before and just never really gave much thought to what was causing the sagging. Probably just figured,”Meh…old house. Sags.” End of story.
Mr. Steer of Plymouth, England had been wondering the same thing about one such sag in his living room for quite a while. Once he retired, he decided to get down to business and fix the problem.
He decided to repair the joists in the floor that might’ve been causing the sag when he noticed something else.
“I was replacing the joists in the floor when I noticed a slight depression – it appeared to be filled in with the foundations of the house,” he said.
“I dug down about one foot but my wife just wanted to me to cover it back up because we had three children running around at the time.
“I always wanted to dig it out to see if I could find a pot of gold at the bottom, so when I retired at the end of last year that’s what I started to do.”
What Steer found was a well dating back to the 16th century. With the help of a friend, Steer began excavating the well. During the excavation, Steer and his friend uncovered what appears to be a peasant’s sword.
After installing lights in the well and making it the new focal point of his living room, Steer’s research has taught him that the well was built in the 16th century by Sir Francis Drake to carry water from Dartmoor to Plymouth. The well had been covered over sometime around 1895.
Just hope they don’t find that video tape and that creepy little Samara Morgan doesn’t come crawling out in the middle of the night dripping well-water all over the floor.
