Russell Spring, Blockley

The Russell Spring is a small stone niche with a water spout in the wall below the raised walkway on the High Street in Blockley, nearly opposite the gate of Malvern House. It carries the inscription "Water from the Living Rock God's Precious Gift to Man", and with the walkway above it dates from the middle of the nineteenth century. It is listed Grade II.

History

The spring and the walkway above it date from the middle of the nineteenth century. The listing records that the spring was built by unemployed men during a winter, under the supervision of Richard Belcher, the parish waywarden, whose job was the upkeep of the roads. The listing for the raised pavement on the other side of the village too, from St George's Terrace to Rodneys, listed separately, names Belcher as its probable mason.

Lucy Russell and the silk mills

The spring takes its name from Lucy Russell, who died in 1858 and worked the nearby mill from about 1800 to 1820. That was Malvern Mill, across the road, then a silk mill known as Russell's Mill. The Gloucestershire Society for Industrial Archaeology counts her as one of only two women among the nine master silk throwsters in Blockley's census of 1827, and Pigot's directory of 1842 still lists her among the village's silk throwsters. Blockley's water was its living: the brook below the High Street drove the village's silk mills. The Victoria County History records the first, built by Henry Whatcot, who died in 1718, and five working by 1780; the trade fell away in the nineteenth century, and the mill buildings are now houses. Blockley itself was a detached part of Worcestershire until 1931.

What to see

Look for the spring first: a simple gabled niche, a little stone aedicule, with the spout set in it, the inscription in the tympanum and the name "Russell Spring" carved above. Then step back to see the wall. It is drystone rubble with a parapet of stones set on end (a soldier course) and a plain string course at the level of the path, and it runs along the north-west side of the road from Arlington Terrace to a little short of Rock Bank. At its highest, above the spring, the walkway is about 3.4m above the road.

Across the road, Malvern Mill is an eighteenth-century mill, disused since 1923 and now a house, its wheel-house altered into an extension. Further along the High Street, Bankside, the Silk Mill and the Granary are seventeenth-century houses remodelled in about 1800.

Visiting

The Russell Spring is on the public High Street, so it can be seen at any time and costs nothing. The road is narrow, so stand on the walkway or the far pavement rather than in the road to look at it. Do not rely on the spout for drinking water; it is not described as a supply.

Getting there

Blockley has no council car park, but walkers report free street parking. Stagecoach buses 1, 1A, 2 and 2A link the village with Moreton-in-Marsh station and Chipping Campden about six times a day each way between them on weekdays (late October 2026), and some on Sundays; check the timetable.

On foot, the Blockley and Norcombe Wood loop comes back up the High Street past the spring and the old mills, and the 9-mile walk from Chipping Campden to Blockley follows the same street through the village.

Nearby

St Peter and St Paul, Blockley's church, is a few minutes away by the square, and Blockley Café on Bell Lane is joined to the village shop. The Great Western Arms on Station Road is the village's Hook Norton pub. Over the hill, St Mary's at Batsford is on the walk to Batsford Park, and Chipping Campden's Woolstaplers' Hall and Market Hall are at the other end of the walk from Campden.