White & Red Spring Waters

The White Spring sits in a Victorian well house that has gone from utility building to derelict shell to sacred temple over the last 150 years. In 1872, the local water board built the stone reservoir and pump house over the spring to pipe “pure” water into Glastonbury during cholera scares, cutting into what had been a wooded combe with a visible stream. The scheme failed because the highly calciferous water kept blocking the pipes, so by the late 19th century the building was abandoned and lay largely derelict for decades. In the 1980s it was briefly reopened and modernised for drinking water, then those fittings and paints were stripped out again when the reservoir fell out of use. In 2004 the building passed into new ownership specifically to re-establish it as sacred space, and in 2005 the current water temple was consecrated; since then, the Companions of the White Spring have gradually created the candlelit pools and shrines you see today.

The White Spring occupies a Victorian pump house that has been gradually transformed since the early 2000s into a candlelit water temple with shrines The White Spring is held as a community sacred space rather than a conventional tourist site or church. It is cared for and effectively “run” by a small group of volunteer custodians/companions, who look after the building, the shrines, and the water temple as an act of service, not as paid staff. A dedicated community-interest/legal structure exists in the background to hold the space and interface with authorities, but the spirit of the place is that it belongs to the community of keepers and pilgrims, not to a commercial owner