Sited at the side of the Crow Road going over the Campsie Fells is this fine well dedicated to Jamie Wright, a Campsie burn fisherman and finder of the spring, and local poet James MacIntosh Slimmon, of Haughhead. Placed here in 1900 it has stood the test of time very well.
The poem inscribed on the granite slab is by James MacIntosh Slimmon, who died of ill heath at the age of 33, in 1895.
Inscribed are the first and third of 10 verses of ‘The Packman’s Salutation to the Mountain Well,’ from James M. Slimmon’s book ‘The Dead Planet and Other Poems,’ it goes as follows:
‘Hail to your dimplin’, wimplin’ drop,
Clear, caller, caul’,
That bids the drouthy traveller stop
An’ tak’ his fill.
Hail to your heart-reviving tipple
Enticing, slee wi’ twinklin’ ripple,
Thou crystal milk frae Nature’s nipple,
Wee Mountain Well!
‘Born of the whirlin’ wintry flake
Of Arctic shower!
When charging storms the welkin rake
And scrudge the bower,
You joukit frae the furious blast
And seepin’ doon the mountain past,
Till here my craig you weet at last;
Sine ower the stour.’
