This is a mere 150 yards up the lane from my cottage. It's the outflow of a small spring fed reservoir, virtually all the houses in the village (about 30) use this water as their water supply. This supply was gifted to the village by the last owner of the Charleton estate, the Marquis of Northampton when the estate was sold off in 1919 to pay damages to a young lady who had been jilted by the eldest son of the family, the Earl of Compton. She was a chorus girl in a London stage show and had been awarded £75,000 in 1917 for breach of promise. She lived on the income from this money until she died in 1962, aged 76 years.
I feel a celebratory pint of that other elixir of life, cider, might be in order at lunchtime.
