Kelsall Village Family Stories

  Being retired and a dog owner, I do a fair amount of walking and consider myself fairly knowledgeable of the local area, in particular Delamere Forest.   A chance conversation with a friend made me realise there was still more learn.   She asked if I knew about the Whistlebitch Well in Primrose Wood. I told her I’d never heard of it and so she gave me an impromptu history lesson. What made the story even more interesting was her family’s connection to it. I wanted to find out more and found a well documented article written about the ancient well on the internet. It seems that for a short time around 400 years ago the sleepy little village of Utkinton was as busy as any place in England, attracting as many as 2000 people daily.   Details of why the well became a pilgrimage for so many people is contained in a pamphlet published in London in 1600 and written in a letter from a Cheshire man to a Gentleman friend of his on 16 August 1600, headed ‘Newes out of Cheshire concerning the N