Lockable well cover from €690

On a flat or domed base, one segment of the cover — roughly a third of the surface — opens on two forged hinges with removable stainless pins. It closes with a hasp and padlock (supplied, stainless shackle) or, as an option, a key lock set into the frame. Open, the hatch takes a 15-litre bucket or a pump strainer; closed, it offers exactly the same resistance as the rest of the bars: a child will not open it, and neither will an adult without the key.

The hatch can be ordered left- or right-hand, and its position is decided from a photograph of your well — facing the natural drawing point, never on the headstock side.

A well-designed lockable cover meets three requirements. Bar spacing of 9 cm maximum — beyond that a small child gets their head through. A closure that resists climbing and shaking (a solid forged hasp, not a swivelling latch). And a total mass that prevents it being lifted away: 25 to 60 kg depending on diameter, anchored at four points. That is the whole gap between this and the lightweight covers sold in shops, which a six-year-old can slide aside. Our child safety page goes into the question in detail, including what the law actually says.

The lockable version exists on all three bases: flat with a hatch (the most discreet), domed with an opening segment (the handsomest), square with a central panel (cisterns and chambers). The mechanism — forged hinges, hasp, stainless padlock — adds €300 on most diameters and €400 on large domes. As with the whole range: solid iron, hot-dip galvanising, twenty-year guarantee, fixings and instructions supplied.

If you let a country house or a gîte with a well in the garden, the lockable cover is not a comfort option: it is often an insurance requirement. The logic is hard to argue with — an open well accessible to tenants, and above all to their children, is a risk no insurer will cover blind. The expected configuration is precise: the shaft permanently closed, bar spacing of 9 cm maximum (no way to get a head through), and access to the water locked with a padlock or key. That is exactly what this model provides, and the manufacturing certificate we supply documents the bar spacing, the mass and the fixing method — all of it directly usable in your insurance file. For the full legal picture, our child safety page sets out what French law actually requires.