A wrought iron well cover,
made to your dimensions

Well cover, well top, well grille: one object, three names

People say “well cover” as readily as “well top” or “well grille”: all three name the ironwork that caps the shaft, stops a fall and gives the well back its crown. The nuance is in the point of view. “Grille” stresses the bars that keep you from falling in; “well top” stresses what you see from the garden — the iron piece that crowns the coping and draws the silhouette of the well. The object itself is exactly the same: a frame rolled to the dimensions of your coping, filled with closely spaced bars, resting on the stone or recessed into it. Whichever word brought you here, you are in the right place.

This page gathers everything to do with well covers in iron and in wrought iron: the shapes available, what those material words actually cover, 2026 prices and how to measure a well that was never round. For the model-by-model detail, each shape has its own page; for a quote, two measurements and a photograph are enough.

Iron, solid iron, wrought iron: what the words really mean

When you search for a “wrought iron well cover”, you are not really thinking about metallurgy: you want real ironwork, not the pressed sheet lid or the hollow steel tube sold for forty euros in a garden centre. Let us be plain. Wrought iron in the strict sense is an old material, all but unobtainable today; the term survives in everyday speech to mean work that is forged — shaped in a workshop, rolled, welded, formed — as opposed to mass assembly.

Our well covers are made of solid iron: massive steel bars, rolled to the exact diameter of your coping, fully welded then ground flush, and hot-dip galvanised by total immersion before painting. That choice is not commercial, it is dictated by the position. A well cover lives permanently above a column of air saturated with moisture: hollow tube rusts from the inside within a few winters with nothing showing, and plain painted sheet blisters by its second season. Solid iron has no inside for water to hide in, and the galvanising coats every joint. That is what underwrites the twenty-year guarantee. Put simply: you are looking for “wrought iron”, and we supply the massive solid iron that keeps its promise — the material that lasts in this exact position.

Four well covers, all made to measure

A well cover only makes sense rolled to your coping: wells were dug by hand, often two centuries ago, and two neighbouring wells share neither diameter nor roundness. Four shapes cover every case, and each is made to your dimensions.

• Flat well cover — Flush and discreet: it makes the well safe without changing its outline. (from €390)
• Domed well cover — The classic dome of a well with character, crowned with scrollwork. (from €590)
• Square well cover — For built wells, inspection chambers and cisterns. (from €450)
• Lockable well cover — A padlocked hatch: the water stays reachable, children do not. (from €690)

The flat one erases the cover from the landscape, the dome crowns it in the manner of manor wells, the square one caps built wells and cisterns, the lockable one reconciles accessible water with child safety. All four share the same specification: solid iron, hot-dip galvanising, twenty-year guarantee, stainless fixings and paper template supplied. Compare the four models →

What a wrought iron well cover costs

The price depends on the shape and the diameter, never on a fixed catalogue, since everything is made to measure. Here are the 2026 ranges, galvanised supply included, excluding fitting.

Supply prices, June 2026, solid galvanised iron, stainless fixings and paper template included — excluding fitting (€150 – 300, or fixing instructions supplied). Source: Grille de Puits. Full detail on the prices page.

Measuring and fitting a well cover

Two measurements are enough to start a quote: two diameters at right angles across the top of the coping, and the width of the stone. Since old wells are rarely round, a paper template is sent so you can record the real shape — that is what guarantees the cover follows the stone without leaving a gap. Fitting is done with four resin anchors into the coping (never with expansion bolts, which split old mortar): one morning with two people. The full detail is on the measuring page and the fitting page.