The well at the Lublin bus station
Suction lift pumps with wooden pipes were being installed in wells in Lublin already since 1826, and in 1841 engineer of the province, Feliks Bieczyński began to endeavour to replace them with lift-and-force pumps with iron pipes. Count Andrzej Zamoyski’s Machines Factory in Warsaw, that by 1863 had installed three of such devices in municipal wells, accepted the commission. Pumps were meant to be equipped with flywheels and cranks.
After operation tests, the project was accepted for implementation: In the catholic city, where each of 8 wells is about 160 ft deep, suction lift pumps with flywheel and pump casing will be installed, whereas in the Jewish city, where all 4 wells are shallow - lift-and-force pumps are to be fitted.
Zamoyski’s factory also offered a standard design of the pump housing. In the city files from 1809-1874 period such design is kept, submitted by the factory in 1864, when the company was assembling the well on the market square, near the Świętoduska St. and Nowa St. (part of today’s Lubartowska St.) junction.
Index
[Collapse]Location
The well is located in the central point of the PKS bus station, in the area of Podzamcze (Castle Grounds).
Function
Providing water for Czwartek suburb.
History
The area of the present-day bus station belonged to the Czwartek suburb, which, in 1865, was mentioned the following way: Since the Czwartek suburb does not have a municipal well, the Government of the Lublin Province recommends the Municipal Council (...) creating a design of such well in this suburb and submitting it to the Provincial Government.
At the session no. 94 in 1865, the Municipal Council passed a resolution regarding construction of a brick well in Czwartek, along with installation of an iron pump. Shortly thereafter, the cost estimate, accounting for 1123 rubles, was accepted by the Council and public procurement procedures started.
The well was meant to be located near Ruska Street. The cost estimate attached to the files enumerates 1000 pcs. of well key bricks, 1000 pcs. of clinker bricks and a fathom of granite for cobbling of the area surrounding the pump housing.
Construction was designed to accommodate: iron pump made by count Zamoyski’s factory, with pipes, upright (...) with straight wrought-iron crank with gearwheel, sieve under the pipes and an iron pipe in the pump housing, not a copper one, as it is more vulnerable to frequent breakdowns - for 267 rubles 80 kopecks.
Unfortunately, design drawings of the well’s distinctive housing, made of clinker brick in an eclectic style of industrial buildings of the time, have not been preserved. However, according to the gathered information, construction of the well should be dated back to the year 1865.
The well is preserved almost in its original form. Distinctive was the slenderness of the pump housing, resulting from the fact that access to water was still free back then and the pump was operated by single person. It changed in the late 19th century and resulted in demand for bigger wells of different type.
Water was conveyed by a pipeline to the former municipal wells, from where it was meant to be drawn using buckets and barrels. The old pump housing had been connected to the waterwork constructed by Ulen i S-ka in the 1920s and was used until the post-war years.
Since 1970 the well has been closed, with neither owner nor user, it was designated as “hovel intended to be removed”. Demolition was prevented by putting the well in the register of monuments on 30th september 1972 (under no. A/633).
In 1975 the bus station was designed by Railroad Projects Bureau in the form that still can be seen today. The well became property of the State Car Communication (Pol. Państwowa Komunikacja Samochodowa, PKS) and since then was used as a handy storehouse. In 1977 the PKS brought up the case of scraping the well due to its poor technical condition. Thanks to endeavours of city Historic Preservation Officer, 1980 saw repairs carried out by Monuments Maintenance Laboratory (Pol. Pracownia Konserwacji Zabytków). Those works consisted in bricking up all gaps in the wall, constructing new tent roof and repairing the elevation, after removing remains of the outflow pipe and disassembling the waterwork devices inside.
According to the visual inspection protocol from 1987, the plinth was damaged again, which lingers until today.
Timeline
1865 - construction of the well;
1970 - the well is no longer used and in danger of being scraped;
1972 - the well is put in the register of monuments;
1975 - construction of the PKS bus station;
1977 - PKS applies for scraping the well;
1980 - repairs carried out by the Monuments Maintenance Laboratory;
2018 - revitalization.
Style
Eclectic, typical for industrial buildings of the time.
Description
Building that serves as the pump casing is 3.5 meters high, built of yellow facing bricks, laid out on a slender square. It is covered with a small copper hip roof with gargoyles. On the top, an iron sphere with a pennant is located.
Elevations are in form of a semicircular arcade, supported by pilasters flanking the corners, archivolts are locked with plain keystones.
Until 1980, semicircular apertures had been located under the arcades, leading into the slender vaulted interior. In 1980, the apertures were closed.
Above the arcades, there is a corrugated cornice, made of profile bricks, supported by corbels. Cornice is profiled in the area of walls’ coping.
Tent roof, with pinnacle and tennant on the top, was reconstructed in 1980.
Condition of the preserved well
1995 - Building in good condition, with exception of damage to one corner of the plinth.
2009 - Condition unchanged since 1995.
2018 - Revitalization.
Restoration work
In 2017, the year which marks the 700th anniversary of the founding of Lublin and the granting of the Magdeburg rights to the city, an idea was born to renovate the brick structure enclosing the well situated in Ruska Street. The first activities aimed at restoration of the well were undertaken in 2017. They started with the assessment of the feasibility of carrying out renovation work aimed at conservation and safeguarding the brick structure enclosing the well, providing the building with glazing on its east-western axis, installing illumination panels as well as replacing the surface surrounding the well. As a consequence, preliminary work was carried out inside the structure, and the restoration project was prepared. The design was elaborated by Maciej Herman from Herman and Partners Associated Architects in Lublin. Conservation and renovation work on the structure of the well commenced on the 12th of March 2018, under the supervision of Monika Konkolewska from the Art Conservation Studio in Lublin. All of the activities relating to restoration work were undertaken on the initiative of the Julian and Raphael Mahari family and the Rotary Club Lublin Centrum. The endeavour was backed by the following institutions: Lublin Stations PLC, the Voivodeship Conservator of Monuments in Lublin, Lublin City Office, “Grodzka Gate – NN Theatre” Centre, as well as private parties. The official opening of the structure took place on the 16th of April 2018.
Literature
- Czerepińska J., Zdrój na placu Dworcowym PKS, [w:] Czerepińska J., Michalska G., Studziński J., Katalog architektury przemysłowej w Lublinie, t. I, cz. II, s. 143, maszynopis opracowany na zlecenie Państwowej Służby Ochrony Zabytków, Lublin 1995.
