Peterhead, Harbour Street, Wine Well

NK14NW 19 1355 4586.

This well is situated on the N side of Peterhead harbour, some 30m to SE of the foot of Jamaica Street. It was discovered in 1592, and was originally kown as St Peter's Well. In 1793, a hydropathic pavilion was constructed above the well, whose medicinal qualities were then being promoted. However, in 1936, when Harbour Street was reconstructed, the external structure of the pavilion was demolished with the exception of part of its SE wall, which was incorporated in a new retaining wall overhung by a cantilevered reinfored-concrete section of roadway; the interior of the well, however, largely survives behind this retaining wall. The surviving length of wall measures 8.8m in length NE-SW and 2.2m - 3m in height. It stands on an outcrop of rocks directly rising from the harbour. Constructed of snecked pink granite rubble it contains four small blocked windows comprising an oculus flanked by two rectangular windows to NE and one to SE. An armorial panel (formerly set over the pavilion entrance) is now positioned in the parapet NW face of the cantilevered roadway; it measures 0.5m by 0.6m and contains much-weathered Peterhead or Keith arms. The interior is not presently accessible, but, according to local informants, contained a triangular SW entrance lobby (corresponding to the three SW windows), an internal NW-SE wall, and a NE well-house (corresponding to the NE window), the open circular well measuring approximately 2.5 to 3m in diameter.

Visited by RCAHMS 17 May 1984. J T Findlay 1933; R Morris and F Morris 1982.