That is precisely what happened in Clonroche, County Wexford, in March 2003, when a sub-rectangular shaft, cut directly into rock and measuring roughly 1.5 metres by 1.5 metres, came to light underfoot. Its mouth had been lined with granite and sealed beneath a granite slab, effectively erasing it from living memory.

When investigators explored the shaft, they found it descended to a depth of 8.4 metres, with the lowest 3.8 metres still holding water. The well had been quietly forgotten at ground level, yet it had not entirely vanished from the historical record. Newspaper references from the second half of the nineteenth century mention it, suggesting that within recent enough history it was at least known about, if not in regular use. How and when it passed out of local knowledge entirely is unclear. What survives is a structure that is, in its quiet way, a small puzzle: a carefully made thing, sealed and submerged beneath the ordinary comings and goings of a village street, waiting for someone to break the surface.