Under this inscription appear the following lines:
‘Drink, traveller, and with strength renewed
Let kindly thoughts be given
To her who has thy thirst subdued,
Then tender thanks to Heaven.’
G. W. Potter, Esq., a gentleman eminently interested in all that concerns Hampstead and its inhabitants, and to whom I am indebted for much valuable information, tells me that people come in numbers to the fountain of a morning, but the water barely drips, and is only very slightly chalybeate in character. But this circumstance induced him, as one of the trustees of the Wells Charity, to get his fellow-trustees to make a small grant of money to be expended in the endeavour to discover the old chalybeate spring, and in greater volume. The Vestry’s workmen were accordingly employed under his direction, with the result that a source of the true chalybeate waters in abundant quantity was discovered. ‘Unfortunately, the analysis showed that the water contained a small amount of organic matter, and the local officers of health very properly will not allow the water to be used by the public unless it is practically pure.’
‘I have reason for thinking,’ continues my correspondent, ‘that the water was fouled accidentally by the workmen making the trial shaft, and further efforts are to be made.’ With what results to Hampstead who can tell?