The Spring House with No Spring

I excavated this building in Delaware 12 years ago. It is a dairy built around 1780, part of a large farm. I find it fascinating because it is built as a spring house, with a channel running around inside the walls to carry water to the drain you can see in the picture above. But there was no spring. Water to cool the milk must have been brought up from the adjacent well. It is a good example of a traditional technology used in an environment where it made little sense.