Billy Hobby's Well is in Grosvenor Park

Grosvenor Park, Chester

Grosvenor Park is a public park in the city of Chester, Cheshire, England . It consists of of land overlooking the River Dee. It is regarded as one of the finest and most complete examples of Victorian parks in the North West of England, if not nationally...

, Chester

Chester

Chester is a city in Cheshire, England. Lying on the River Dee, close to the border with Wales, it is home to 77,040 inhabitants, and is the largest and most populous settlement of the wider unitary authority area of Cheshire West and Chester, which had a population of 328,100 according to the...

, Cheshire

Cheshire

Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...

, England. Its canopy

Canopy (building)

A canopy is an overhead roof or else a structure over which a fabric or metal covering is attached, able to provide shade or shelter. A canopy can also be a tent, generally without a floor....

 has been designated by English Heritage

English Heritage

English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...

 as a Grade II listed building.

History

Grosvenor Park was developed on land given to the city of Chester by Richard Grosvenor, 2nd Marquess of Westminster

Richard Grosvenor, 2nd Marquess of Westminster

Richard Grosvenor, 2nd Marquess of Westminster KG, PC , styled Viscount Belgrave from 1802 to 1831 and Earl Belgrave from 1831 to 1845, was an English politician, landowner, property developer and benefactor....

 in the 1860s. The land consisted of fields on the north side of the River Dee overlooking the river. The largest of these fields was known as Billy Obbies' Field. This field contained a spring or well that was believed to have magical powers; maidens stood with their right leg in the water and wished for husbands. As part of the development of the park, the Marquess commissioned the Chester architect John Douglas

John Douglas (architect)

John Douglas was an English architect who designed about 500 buildings in Cheshire, North Wales, and northwest England, in particular in the estate of Eaton Hall. He was trained in Lancaster and practised throughout his career from an office in Chester, Cheshire...

 to design a number of features for the park, including a canopy for the well. The structure is now used as a pump house for the water garden in the park.

Architecture

The canopy is built in red and buff sandstone

Sandstone

Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...

 ashlar

Ashlar

Ashlar is prepared stone work of any type of stone. Masonry using such stones laid in parallel courses is known as ashlar masonry, whereas masonry using irregularly shaped stones is known as rubble masonry. Ashlar blocks are rectangular cuboid blocks that are masonry sculpted to have square edges...

. It stands on a square plinth

Plinth

In architecture, a plinth is the base or platform upon which a column, pedestal, statue, monument or structure rests. Gottfried Semper's The Four Elements of Architecture posited that the plinth, the hearth, the roof, and the wall make up all of architectural theory. The plinth usually rests...

 and has canted

Cant (architecture)

Cant is the architectural term describing part, or segment, of a facade which is at an angle to another part of the same facade. The angle breaking the facade is less than a right angle thus enabling a canted facade to be viewed as, and remain, one composition.Canted facades are a typical of, but...

 corners. Each face has a pointed arch flanked by a granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 column containing wrought iron

Wrought iron

thumb|The [[Eiffel tower]] is constructed from [[puddle iron]], a form of wrought ironWrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon...

 bars. The voussoir

Voussoir

A voussoir is a wedge-shaped element, typically a stone, used in building an arch or vault.Although each unit in an arch or vault is a voussoir, two units are of distinct functional importance: the keystone and the springer. The keystone is the center stone or masonry unit at the apex of an arch. A...

s of the arches include carved roses. On each corner is a small carved circle containing carved sheafs and portcullis

Portcullis

A portcullis is a latticed grille made of wood, metal, fibreglass or a combination of the three. Portcullises fortified the entrances to many medieval castles, acting as a last line of defence during time of attack or siege...

es. The roof consists of a tiled spire, and at its apex is a lead finial

Finial

The finial is an architectural device, typically carved in stone and employed decoratively to emphasize the apex of a gable or any of various distinctive ornaments at the top, end, or corner of a building or structure. Smaller finials can be used as a decorative ornament on the ends of curtain rods...

 surmounted by a copper fish which acts as a weather vane

Weather vane

A weather vane is an instrument for showing the direction of the wind. They are typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest point of a building....

.