Domed well cover from €590

The dome was never mere decoration: by doming the cover, the old smiths stopped loads being set down on it, shed leaves and snow, and cleared the volume the pulley needed. Our domes follow the same logic: main ribs in 30 × 10 mm flat bar crossing at the apex under a forged ball or pine cone, a lower crown rolled to the diameter of the coping, and — depending on the drawing — C-scrolls between the ribs, as on eighteenth-century work.

Three dome heights are offered: shallow (≈ 25 cm, understated), classic (≈ 40 cm) and cathedral (≈ 55 cm and above, for wide copings). Quoting is done from a photograph of your well: the dome must be proportionate to the height of the coping, and the workshop calculates that.

The dome lends itself to personalisation: ball, pine cone or fleur-de-lys at the apex; C- or S-scrolls between the ribs; a low frieze of ogees; and, for wells that still carry their headstock, a bespoke cut-out that encloses the original ironwork without touching it. If your well still has its pulley, say so on the quote request — we forge around it, never against it.

Finishes: matt black as standard, bronze green, walnut brown, or any RAL colour. On honey-coloured stone, patinated bronze green is by far the handsomest — the choice of eight clients in ten once they have seen the swatches.

Like the rest of the range: solid iron only, full welds ground flush, hot-dip galvanising by immersion, then paint. The dome is the most exposed piece — rain, frost, full southern sun — and that is exactly why hollow tube is banned here: a tubular dome rusts from the inside within five winters. Ours is guaranteed twenty years, structure and galvanising.

The dome is the model for which we most often recommend our own fitting service. Two reasons: the weight (30 to 60 kg depending on diameter, to be offered up without scratching the stone) and the centring of the dome, which must fall exactly in the middle of the coping or it will look askew. If you fit it yourself, plan on two people, a hammer drill and resin anchor. Offer it up dry, mark the four points, drill and blow the dust out thoroughly, inject the resin, pack it level and check the centring before final tightening. Illustrated instructions and stainless fixings are supplied. For a dome that has to accommodate an original pulley you want to keep, flag it on the quote: the workshop draws the opening around the existing ironwork and never touches it.