ENGLANDS ONLY OIL WELL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 21 August 1907, Page 4

ENGLAND S ONLY OIL WELL.

The only oil well in England is at N infield, Sussex, where the villagers who go to draw water get buckctsful of paiatlin instead.

• Attention has been drawn to the remarkable properties of this Xuuield well •Vater" by a report of the llailsham medical officer oi health. He describes it being ''unfit for domestic purposes"; which is not exaggerating the case at aTT, for one day the wife of a cottager nearly set herself alight with this water through putting some on the fire to make a fiercer heat.' The chairman of the Council endorsed the opinion of the doctor, for he himself had used a sample of the water as fuel for a week, and it burnt excellently. Xinfield is but a few miles from Bex-nill-on-Sea, and this well provides the supply for a row of cottages. The well is about 50ft deep, is brick-lined, and all its.surroundings are tainted and greasy. To satisfy a pressman a bucket was lowered, and brought up half-a-gallon of dirty yellow soup, with a top layer of half an inch of grease. Some of this was scooped out and pnt in a separate vessel, when it burnt fiercely, throwing off a thick, black smoke.

Up to within five years ago the well was of good character. Then one washing day it was found that the well had decided to supply paraffin in future. And it has done so from that time, though cleaned out on several occasions. The remarkable thing about it is that there are several wells in its immediate neighlnrhood quite untainted—one is within a hundred feet. It is probably the only oil well in 'England Usually petroleum is obtained only at great depth, but this Ninfield well is not more than GOft deep. Petroleum is the result, of organic remains in the earth, and it is possible some disturbance of the strata here lias tapped a "pocket" containing roek oil.