LOCKSWELL SPRING.
The Empress Maud granted to her Chamberlain, Drogo, certain land in Pewsham Forest. Drogo transferred the benefaction to a Cistercian brotherhood. On a hill in the Forest, a part of Drogo’s gift, was a spring of the purest water, called “Lockswell,” and the abbey which the monks built, bore the name of the ” Abbey of Drogo’s Fount,” or ” Drownfont.” The water from this spring has flowed from time unknown, in a never failing, never varying volume of 150 gallons a minute.
” It is a magnificent spring, rising on the very top of the hill, which is on all sides surrounded with wild and romantic scenery. It appears in the spot in which it bursts, nearly three feet broad, singular and beautiful, rushing into day, and then winding its precipitous and solitary way till it ia lost among the wildest glades of the ancient forest of Chippenham ; once famous and hallowed, it has flowed for centuries through the wild bourne.”
W.L.Bowles
History of Chipenham, 1894, 48-9, (J.J. Daniell)