In Charles Pooley’s (1868) definitive account of Gloucestershire county crosses, he informs us that,
“there was formerly a Cross erected in this village, but it has long since disappeared.”
He gives no further information about its history, but we must surmise that it was either associated with the ancient priory on the north side of the village, or in the traditional place at the centre of the the village. The grid-reference cited places the lost cross in the grounds of the priory.
References:
Pooley, Charles, Notes on the Old Crosses of Gloucestershire, Longmans Green: London 1868.
In Charles Pooley’s (1868) definitive history on the county crosses, this monument is mentioned in passing without any known history, apart form it been destroyed sometime in the early 19th century:
“A cross formerly stood in the churchyard, but it has been removed within living memory.”
References:
Pooley, Charles, Notes on the Old Crosses of Gloucestershire, Longmans Green: London 1868.
Cross (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – SY 5167 9622
Archaeology & History
This old cross was almost lost to history, but thanks to personal notes written by one John Banger Russell in 1780, we’ve been left with a description of the monument, which Alfred Pope (1906) published in his survey:
“In the middle of this parish are the remains of a large cross, which has been much injured by time. The shaft, which seems to have been of considerable height, has been taken down, tho’ the base or pediment still continues in its proper place. The ascent was by four steps but the whole is very ruinous.”
Nearly a hundred years later in the hugely updated magnum opus of John Hutchins (1863), the site had long gone:
“A mutilated cross which stood in the centre of the village at the beginning of the present century, has since been destroyed.”
References:
Hutchins, John, The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset – volume 2, Bowyer & Nichols: London (3rd edition) 1863.
Pope, Alfred, The Old Stone Crosses of Dorset, Chiswick Press: London 1906.
In days of olde an old stone cross used to stand “at the crossroads just outside the churchyard,” wrote Alfred Pope (1906); but even in his day he told that “the cross has long since disappeared.” He continued:
“The Rev A.S.B. Freer, vicar, informs the writer that the site is still known as ‘The Cross’, and is never called by any other name by the villagers.”
The church in the village is dedicated to All Saints, whose festival date was known in older times to be the pre-christian New Year’s Eve, or Halloween, when the spirits of the dead move across the landscape.
References:
Pope, Alfred, The Old Stone Crosses of Dorset, Chiswick Press: London 1906.
Healing Well (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – SP 166 350
Archaeology & History
This is one of several iron-bearing wells (chalybeates) that used exist in and around the village. Mentioned briefly in Alfred Soden’s (1875) history of the parish, he told that,
“years ago, there were several chalybeate springs here, very strongly impregnated. One of these was at the lower end of Westmacott’s Lane: of this spring there is now no visible trace, it having been built over.”
Although Mr Soden said nothing about the healing properties of this well, due to the mineral composition of chalybeates they always tend to be good fortifiers or pick-me-ups, being good for the blood. And in this case, as the waters were “very strongly impregnated” they would have possessed some considerable local renown.
References:
Soden, Alfred J., The History of Blockley, J.W. Parbury: Coventry 1875.
Healing Well (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – SP 163 347
Archaeology & History
It would seem that there’s no longer any trace of a healing well of some renown that once existed on the south side of Blockley village. It is mentioned briefly in Alfred Soden’s (1875) history of the parish, where he wrote:
“At the back of what is called “Bath Orchard,” now belonging to Mr. John Herbert, there was a well called “Blind Well;” the medicinal properties of the water being considered to be remedial in cases of weak eyesight. The writer has been informed that persons would come from a considerable distance to fetch water from this well for the purpose of bathing the eyes.”
References:
Soden, Alfred J., The History of Blockley, J.W. Parbury: Coventry 1875.
Holy Well (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – TL 10302 30328
Also Known as:
Hertfordshire Historic Environment Record No. 1926
Archaeology & History
The site of the well is now in the garden of a house on the south side of the B655 Barton Road in Hexton, south west of St Faith’s church. Prior to the Reformation, there was a small chapel of St Faith adjacent to the well containing a shrine to the saint, which was, with the well a place of pilgrimage.
N. Salmon, writing in 1728, told us:
St Faiths Well on 1882 map
“At Ravensborough, within a Quarter of a Mile, is a fine Spring, which runs down to Hexton, and meets there another Stream rising at the Berystede near the church, which is indeed a very remarkable one. It comes pouring out of the Earth in such plenty, that it would turn a Mill in a very little Way; and hath been since the Roman Times thought worthy of a Saint’s Name. It was called St Faith’s Well, to which the church also is dedicated, and the Image of St Faith was placed over it.”
The well is just to the north of the iron age hill fort of Ravensburgh and near the ancient prehistoric roadway of Icknield Way, so would certainly have been a welcome stopping point for prehistoric travellers in these chalk uplands. In line with Salmon’s contention of its having been known since Roman times, Francis Taverner, the 17th century Lord of the Manor of Hexton wrote of the well having been used for oracular purposes by people who would throw an object onto the surface of the water:
“which if swamme above they were accepted and there petition granted, but if it sinke, then rejected which the experienced Prieste had arts enove to cause to swymme or sinke according as himselfe was pleased with the partye, or rather with the offering made by the partye.”
St Faith who was a third century martyr who was beheaded at Agen in Gaul. Her saint’s day is 6th October, and her patronage was invoked inter alia by pilgrims, so the dedication of the well and nearby church may have been to ‘christianise’ a pre-existing oracular place resorted to by travellers on the Icknield Way.
Taverner again:
“There is a small parcel of ground adjoining the churchyard called “St. Ffaith’s Wick Court,” about a pole in measurement, anciently divided from Malewick by a ditch in the same place where now a large moat is made. The greatest parte of this Wick lying upon a bedde of springs, and undrained, was very boggye towards the churchyard; but the west side being higher, the ground was well planted with oaks, willows, and bushes, near adjoyning unto which, the craftye Priests had made a well about a yard deepe, and very cleere in the bottome, and curbed about, which they called St. Faith’s Well.
“Now over this well they built an howse, and in the howse they placed the image or statue of St. Faith, and a cawsey they had mad (which I found when I digged and levelled the ground) for the people to passe who resorted thither from farr and neere to visitt our Lady, and to performe their devotions reverently, kissing a fine-colloured stone placed in her toe. This Lady was trimly apparelled, and I find in an old book of churchwarden’s accounts, in the reign of Henry VIII, that they had delivered unto the St. Ffaith a cote and a velvet tippet. The Lady had no land to maintain her, that I know of, more than i acre lying in Mill Field, called at this day St. Ffaith’s acre, which, as being given to superstitious uses, came to the King’s hands at the dissolution, and is now parcel of the demesnes. The house being pulled down, and the idol cast away, the well was filled up, yet an apparent mention of the place remained till my time, and St. Ffaith’s Well continued as a waste and unprofitable and neglected piece of land till such time as the footpath was turned through the midst of it to the outside on the south by the highway, and their clearing and levelling the ground, having been drained, and sunk the spring, I converted the same, in the year of our Lord 1624, into a little orchard. The Lady Ffaith was a Virgin and Martyr of Agenne, in France, a.d. 1290.”
The well may have had healing properties too. Herbert Tompkins (1902) informed us how,
“…to folk who have never stepped out of Hertfordshire (I have known several such) the well of St. Faith is indeed the “Well at the World’s End.” The waters of that well were of miraculous efficacy, and an image of its saint was long preserved in the chapel of St. Faith Virgin, of which no stone remains.”
The parish church of Hexton remains dedicated to St Faith , as does the parish church of nearby Kelshall. There was another St Faith’s Well at Leven in East Yorkshire.
References:
Clutterbuck, Robert, History & Antiquities of the County of Hertford – volume 3, Nichols Son & Bentley: London 1827.
Farmer, David Hugh, Oxford Dictionary of Saints, Oxford University Press 1987.
Hippisley-cox, R., The Green Roads of England, 6th Edition, Methuen: London 1948.
Hope, Robert c., Legendary Lore of the Holy Wells of England, Elliot Stock: London 1893.
Johnson, Walter, Folk Memory or the Continuity of British Archaeology, Clarendon Press: Oxford 1908.
Jones-Baker, Doris, Old Hertfordshire Calendar, Phillimore: Chichester 1974.
Salmon, N., History of Hertfordshire, London, 1728.
Tompkins, Herbert W., Highways & Byways of Hertfordshire, Macmillan: London 1902.
Tumulus (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – TL 5801 5874
Archaeology & History
Site marked on 1886 map
In times of olde on this prominent tree-covered hill, a tomb of some ancient ancestor once lived. It had already been destroyed by some retards by the time the Ordnance Survey lads came here in 1885; but thankfully, memory gave its existence the note it deserved. The place had thankfully been given the once-over by some archaeologists in the middle of that century, giving us a pretty good idea as to its size and nature. Measuring some 90 feet across and fourteen feet high, this was no mere toddler!
A Mr W.T. Collings (1846) gave his Intelligence Report to the archaeological journal of the period, from which the following description is gained:
“The excavation of this tumulus in 1845 was made from east to west, commencing from the eastern side, in the direction of its centre, in which, at a depth of about three feet, there was found a cinerary urn in an inverted position, slightly tilted on one side, and surrounded by charcoal and burnt earth. It was filled with charcoal, but contained only one small fragment of bone. This vessel, which was of the simplest manufacture, moulded by the hand, and sun-baked, measured in height five inches, and its diameter at the largest part was five inches and a half. From the deep red colouring, and the general appearance of the surrounding soil, it would seem that a small hole had been first dug, charcoal and bones burnt in it, the vase placed on the fire in an inverted position, and the whole covered up. About ten feet eastward of the central deposit, on the south side of the line of excavation, and half a foot deeper, a deposit of fragments of bone was found apparently calcined, but with little charcoal or burnt earth, forming a layer not more than three inches thick, and two feet in circumference. There were several pieces of the skull, a portion of the alveolar process, inclosing a tooth, apparently that of a young person, pieces of the femur and clavicle, and other fragments. A little to the north of this spot there appeared a mass of charcoal and burnt earth, containing nothing of interest. After digging five or six feet deeper, operations were discontinued; and on the next day shafts were excavated from the centre, so as completely to examine every part, without any further discovery, and in every direction charcoal was found mingled with the heap, not in patches, but in fragments.”
Collings reported the existence of another burial mound a short distance to the south. It was one of at least five such tumuli in the immediate locale, all of which have been destroyed by retards in the area.
References:
Collings, W.T., “Archaeological Intelligence,” in Archaeological Journal, volume 3, 1846.
Tumulus (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – TQ 192 735
Also Known as:
Oliver’s Mount
Archaeology & History
Roque’s 1746 map
Oliver’s Mound was highlighted as early as 1746 on John Roque’s map of the Country Near Ten Miles Round (London) as still standing. One hundred and fifty years later, when the Ordnance Survey lads came to map the area, it had gone. We don’t know exactly when it was demolished, so Historic England (not necessarily a good measure of accuracy) tell us its demise occurred “between 1760 and 1868”, so giving themselves at least some degree of safety!
As we can see in Mr Roque’s old map, an avenue of trees led up to the barrow. This avenue will have been created when Richmond Park and its gardens were laid out.
The round barrow was most likely Bronze Age in origin. The historian and folklorist Walter John (1093) reported that in 1834, three skeletons were found at a depth of a yard beneath the surface.
Folklore
Site shown on 1873 map
Traditional tells that the name of this barrow comes from when the religious extremist, Oliver Cromwell, and his men, set up camp here. A slight variant tells that Cromwell stood here to watch a skirmish.
Tumulus (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – TQ 222 709
Archaeology & History
It seems that a great number of prehistoric remains used to exist in and around the Wimbledon Common area. This one is mentioned only briefly in Thomas Stackhouse’s (1833) rare work on early British remains, where he wrote:
“Near an old single-trenched Camp at the South West comer of Wimbledon Common, is a very small flat Barrow cut into the form of a cross: I don’t know that it has been noticed by any writer.”
The “single-trenched Camp” he described is today known as Caesar’s Camp hillfort. By the time the Wimbledon historian William Bartlett (1865) came to write his survey, the site had been destroyed. In Mr Johnson’s (1903) survey, he seems to confuse this site with the large barrow cemetery that used to exist on the northern edges of Wimbledon Common described by William Stukeley and others.
(the grid-reference to this site is an approximation).
References:
Bartlett, William A., The History and Antiquities of Wimbledon, Surrey, J. & S. Richards: Wimbledon 1865.
Johnson, Walter, Neolithic Man in North-East Surrey, Elliot Stock: London 1903.
