After months of planning, North Rodes’ first ever Well dressing took place on 30th August 2026. Work started many weeks ago with the design and construction of the well dressing boards, specially designed to hold sufficient depth of clay to retain moisture and to ensure the clay and flowers don’t fall out! The boards were fitted with chicken wire and clout nails to help retain the clay. Visits were made to a number of well dressings in Derbyshire for ideas and also to find out how to do it!. Bradwell Well dressing teams were particularly helpful on materials, plants and petals to use, the type of clay and also how to carry out the delicate work of Petalling. The next step was to create a design and transfer it to full size paper cutouts for each board. We chose the North Rode village sign for inspiration and simplified it to make it more practical.
We were blessed with mainly dry weather for the well dressing and Church Lane was closed off for the event. Leek Morris came along to entertain the village and our Vicar Rev Colin Wilson provided a very apt blessing of the well followed by a village rendition of ‘All things Bright and Beautiful’ Villager, family and friends picnicked in the road to enjoy a rare moment with no traffic along Church Lane. Villagers were then invited by Leek Morris to participate in a stick dance and lucky to say no injuries were sustained!
To round the day off, a Ceilidh was organised for the village at Daintry Hall in the evening. The band, Maggoty provided the music and a caller to dance the night away. Jonathan Heywood of Local events company Lightech kindly lit up St Michaels Church and Daintry Hall to provide a fantastic mood. It was certainly a day to be remembered in North Rode village!
