ANCIENT WELL DISCOVERED UNDER SWANSEA PREMISES

Herald of Wales

It was reported by the Herald of Wales in July 1925 that reconstruction work at the Adam and Eve Hotel, High Street, brought to light an unexpected relic of Swansea’s buried past. What began as routine lifting of floorboards in a small pantry room became a moment of quiet archaeological significance, revealing the stone‑rimmed mouth of an ancient, long‑forgotten well beneath the premises.

Workmen, expecting nothing more than joists and dust, instead uncovered a twenty‑foot shaft containing eight feet of clear water, its presence wholly unknown to the licensee, Mrs. Whittaker. The well, sealed away through generations of rebuilding, appears to be of considerable age — perhaps a remnant of the High Street’s earlier domestic or commercial life, when inns, stables, and small dwellings depended on their own water sources.

The discovery stirred immediate interest among townspeople. Some older residents recalled that the High Street once held a network of private wells and cisterns before municipal waterworks were established. Others speculated that this particular shaft may have served a courtyard or yard belonging to a long‑vanished property, its memory erased by time and redevelopment.

Throughout the day, tradesmen and curious locals visited the site, peering down into the cool darkness of the newly uncovered relic. Whether the well will be preserved, surveyed, or sealed remains undecided, but its emergence — faithfully noted by the Herald of Wales — adds a vivid, unexpected chapter to Swansea’s layered urban history.