Some of the group had a fun morning looking at the legal documents to do with the sale of The Wells to Innerleithen Town Council. They are difficult for non-legal types like us to interpret, but one contains the sale of 14 properties and parcels of land by Fiona Maxwell Stuart of Traquair in 1996; this includes The Wells. The total price was £8,000 but, in general, it’s unclear what is being sold. Allan Johnston is investigating further.
One document is, however, readily understood. It’s a Deed of Servitude by The Woodland Trust in favour of SBC dated 2002. (The land above the Wells belongs to The Woodland Trust’).
It gives the council ‘ALL: and WHOLE a heritable and irredeemable servitude right to take water from the spring marked X on the plan … including collecting said water in a collection tank … and conveying water to the dominant tenement (i.e. The Wells)..’
One of the conditions is interesting: ‘.. the sale or bottling of the said water is specifically prohibited;’
So the sulphur and mineral springs (wells) have dried up and the remaining spring water from the woods may not be bottled or sold. It’s the end of the line for the original purpose of the building, but it has a bright new future if the St Ronan’s Wells Group acquire it via a Community Asset Transfer.
Here’s a map:
