JUST as it has been in recent months, a well-known landmark was in the news 50 years ago this week, when the Gazette carried the headline Modified Scheme For St Ann's Well Approved.

The board of Malvern Hills Conservators had previously considered - and rejected - a renovation scheme for the well costing £7,000, and settled for a more modest £2,750 project.

"We have a duty to the public who use our hills and I want to see St Ann's well kept as near as possible as it is now," said board chairman Mr T Cook.

Bur another board member, Mr W S Brettell, said he did not favour either one of the schemes, and he suggested that an attractive building should be erected on the terrace opposite the well.

He said: "It [the existing building] such as attractive building now? It is just plain ugly. Are we going to spend all this money in patching up the building as it is today, and pass it on as a legacy for the future.

"I think it is absolutely wrong. We could on the opposite side erect an attractive building constructed of wood and glass for a little over £3,000.

"I know I am in the minority, but I think posterity will prove we are making a mistake."

But Mr H J Tooby said: "Its architecture has been criticised, but I think the present building is unique and not one commonly seen at resorts. I fell that it we demolish it and substitute the sort of thing that is going up in hundreds all over the countryside, we shall be making a very great mistake."