Stock it well !

Stockwell Street, Glasgow, is pretty well known, and every person in the old days was aware of the “Ratten Well,” with its impure waters. It is said that, in days of yore, when Sir William Wallace had occasion to be in that quarter, he and his followers met a party of Englishmen at the well. A skirmish ensued, and the bodies of the Englishmen, who were defeated, were thrown by the victorious Scots into the well.

“ Stock it well ! stock it well !” exclaimed Wallace, from which expression the street received its name. So says
tradition, at all events ; and it is even yet believed that the bad quality of the water was owing to the putrefaction of the dead bodies of the Englishmen.

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