Category: Holy Wells

When water first emerges from the Earth they’re known as ’springs’ of water; those with stone troughs or basins into which the water falls are ‘wells.’ I don’t see much difference misself! And if water was of any importance to our ancestors (anyone who thinks it wasn’t is probably a bit slow…), such a clinical definition is of little importance. Many water-sites possessed great healing or therapeutic properties, as evidenced by chemical analyses (mainly in Victorian times, when a bittova craze on these wells was in vogue), aswell as folk-tradition, plus vast numbers of subjective encounters. To ancient societies – indeed, to myself – water is our blood, or the blood of the Earth. Treating this liquid as little more than a ‘commodity’, aswell as polluting it, should be a criminal offence – simple as!

Physic Well, North Kelvin, Glasgow, Lanarkshire

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Healing Well (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NS 5805 6728

Archaeology & History

Any site named as a ‘Physic Well’ anywhere in Britain is, by definition, a spring of water renowned for its medicinal properties. Nowadays however, at this and other sites with the same name, local people aren’t even aware that such places exist. A sad state of affairs indeed… This Physic Well was once found just off Trossach Street in Maryhill—which was once called ‘Well Street’, after the medicinal spring itself—in fields just above the road. Today a small housing estate has been built on top of the site and the only sign of it ever being here appears to be marked by a birch tree in the gardens at the middle of the enclosing buildings.

The site was listed in several early 19th century municipal surveys of Glasgow, but the greater references to it seem to be from local people who described it as a place that was visited annually along the perambulation of the old Barony parish, despite it being just over the edge and into Maryhill. In an extensive footnote in Renwick’s Glasgow Memorials he gives us a fascinating insight into the gatherings at the Well, and the popular customs and social activities of the period:

“William Graham, of Lambhill, aged 69, recollected in his school days, “drinking at a well a very little to the north of the Barony glebe, which was called the Physic Well, and there was then a Royalty stone a little to the west of the glebe.” The Physic Well, perhaps all that effective drainage had left of the former loch, otherwise called ‘Plommaris Hole,’ was utilised at the periodic perambulation of marches for impressing on the memory recollection of this part of the boundary. The means taken for this end may be gathered from the evidence of John Alston, weaver, aged 54, who says that, when he was an apprentice, his master told him that it was a custom, “when the magistrates rode the marches to duck some of the last-made burgesses in the Physic Well”; and, on the same topic, James Bryce, victualler, aged 70, depones that, forty years ago, it was commonly reported in the town that at the marches-riding it was the custom “to duck the youngest town-officer in a well called the Physic Well, which is now filled up, but which was near the Barony glebe.” Janet Paterson, widow of William Paterson, labourer, aged 78, recollects of another well, called the Loanhead Well, in the Barony Glebe, from which she carried water when a young girl. ”About 57 yean ago she saw two ploughs going in the Barony Glebe on the Fast Day of the town Sacrament. In general people wrought the Physic Well Park on the town’s Fast Day, but she never saw them working on the Barony Glebe except on the occasion mentioned.” William M’Culloch, farmer, Lightbum, aged 57, says that when Mr. Hill was minister of the Barony parish, the deponent’s father was employed by him, for a good many years, to plough the Barony Glebe, and on one occasion he recollects the glebe being sown and harrowed upon a Fast Day preceding the town Sacrament. Mr. Hill told his father that the glebe was not within the town’s bounds, that the sowing and harrowing it on the Fast Day could disturb nobody, and that his father could have the sowing finished in time to go to church. Peter Ferguson, weaver, aged 5$, had resided in the neighbourhood of the Barony Glebe from his infancy. When he was a boy he heard it very frequently mentioned by old people, as a common report, that when delinquents or debtors, prosecuted before the town courts of Glasgow, were pursued by the town officers, for the purpose of being apprehended, they were in the practice of endeavouring to get across the Howgate Strand; and if they accomplished this they set the officer at defiance and pointed their fingers at them in derision, as being then without the city’s jurisdiction. Howgate Strand was a small run of water which crossed Castle Street, at the south end of the glebe, then passed through the infirmary grounds and joined the Molendinar Burn a little to the north of the High Church. Another witness, Thomas Alston, manucturer, aged 55, places the fugitives’ point of escape at the north end of the glebe. In his young days it was the practice for the town officers to apprehend boys who were playing on the streets upon the Sabbath and the Fast Days preceding town Sacraments; and he remembered well that it was a common opinion with him and his companions that they were safe from the town officers when they got beyond the Physic Well, on the Glasgowfield road, or beyond the spot marked on Mr. Fleming’s plan ‘Toll-house’, on the Kirkintilloch road, as they considered themselves to be then without the town’s jurisdiction.”

The Well was close to a series of old boundary or ‘merche’ stones, but no ancient ones seem to remain.

The medicinal potential for the water was examined in 1771 by a Dr William Irvine, who found it to be a chalybeate or iron-bearing spring, and to possess “a little muriatic acid”, giving the well both tonic and fortifying properties.

References:

Irvine, William, Essays, Chiefly on Chemical Subjects, J. Mawman: London 1805.
Renwick, Robert, Glasgow Memorials, James Maclehose: Glasgow 1908.

Acknowledgements: Huge thanks to Nina Harris for guiding us to the spot where this old well once existed.

Pear Tree Well, Kelvinside, Glasgow, Lanarkshire

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Healing Well (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NS 56728 67797

Also Known as:

Canmore ID 164370
Three Tree Well

Archaeology & History

The demise of this old healing spring of water occurred a few generations ago by the look of things. Marked on the earliest Ordnance Survey maps—erroneously as the ‘Three Tree Well’, as Mr McDonald (1860) will soon explain—it was located on the west side of the River Kelvin, halfway between the Kirklee footbridge and the ancient ford, but the only remains we can see of it now appears to be the brick-walling above which a pair of sycamore trees rise, or perhaps beneath the man-hole cover on the path lower down.

…But it wasn’t always this way… Known to be a chalybeate, or iron-bearing spring (which are always regarded as tonics in local lore, fortifying the blood general health), when the local writer Hugh McDonald (1860) wrote about it in his wonderful Rambles round Glasgow in the middle of the 19th century, he cast a picture of the area that few Glaswegians would recognise today—and a damn good swipe at the incomers trying to alter the names of traditional places:

“At the western extremity of the Botanic Gardens a narrow passage, in popular parlance called “the Kyber Pass,” leads over a green knoll to the volley of the Kelvin at the famous “Pear-tree Well.” …The scenery of the Kelvin in the vicinity of the Pear-tree Well is of the most romantic and beautiful description. The banks are bold, and in many places fringed with masses of foliage to the water-lip; while the rustic bridge, the lonely cottage, and the picturesque mill, seem planted by the very hand of taste, along the meanderings of the rippled and murmuring stream, wherever they are likely to produce a telling effect… Altogether the scene and its accessories present the very choicest of those harmonious combinations of colour and form which the landscape limner loves to gaze upon, and fondly endeavours, in the pride of his skill, to transfer to the living canvas. No wonder it is that Kelvin Grove has long been the favourite haunt of our City lovers, and the favourite theme of our local poets; for Nature has, indeed, strewn its recesses with charms as fresh and beautiful as though it were situated far from the dwellings of men, instead of almost under the wing of our most dinsome and dusky of towns.

“The Pear-tree Well issues from the bottom of a steep and thickly-wooded bank, which, at this point, rises gracefully from the rocky bed of the streamlet. The crystalline and deliciously cool water is collected into a considerable cavity in the earth; immediately over which three large trees—a plane and two handsome ashes—raise on high their umbrageous heads, while their sturdy roots, in serpent-like convolutions, twine around the watery hollow beneath, as if to defend it from the intrusion of the penetrating noonday sun. Some suppose that it is from this trio of sylvan guardians that the fountain has received its name — and that the ‘Three-tree’ and not the ‘Pear-tree’ Well is its proper denomination. The advocates of the latter theory further remark, that there is no pear-tree in the vicinity, and that consequently the popular name is probably but a corruption of “Three-tree.” There is high authority for saying that names are things of slight consequence; but however that may be, we are inclined, in the present instance, to be conservative of the old name for this favourite well, and to retain it in spite of all attempts at innovation. Whether from langsyne associations or not, we shall not attempt to discover, but Pear-tree Well sounds most musically on our ear — and we should be loath to have it suppressed by the word-coinage of any crotchety theorist; and besides, who can tell what kind of trees may have formerly graced the locality? A perfect orchard of the pear tribe may, at some past period, have clothed the banks of Kelvin for anything that these violators of a time-honoured name—”these men who are given to change”—know to the contrary. No, no! Pear-tree Well it has been, and Pear-tree Well to us, at least, it must remain. We had as lief meet an old friend with a new face, as an old haunt with a new name.

“Having done our devoirs to the spirit of the fountain, by draining a bicker of the translucent water, which, by the way, is slightly impregnated with iron, we sit ourselves down on the bank above, under the ashen tree, when one of two friends with whose company we have been honoured, inspired by the half-gelid beverage, bursts suddenly out with—

“Let us haste to Kelvin Grove, bonnie lassie, O.”

“We of course join heartily in the measure, which has for many years been highly popular in the west of Scotland, and which we naturally enjoy with double zest, amid the scenery to which it refers…”

The great historian and romantic, J.A. Hammerton (1920) even passed here, telling how sufferers of disease relied upon its curing waters to heal them. It is just such a pity that this picturesque medicinal spring and its rivulet are with us no more…

References:

Brotchie, T.C.F., Glasgow Rivers and Streams: Their Legend and Lore, John Maclehose: Glasgow 1914.
Brotchie, T.C.F., “Holy Wells in and Around Glasgow,” in Old Glasgow Club Transactions, volume 4, 1920.
Hammerton, J.A., Wonderful Britain: Its Highways and Byways – volume 1, EBC: London 1920.
McDonald, Hugh, Rambles round Glasgow, John Cameron: Glasgow 1860.
Millar, A.H., By-gone Glasgow, Morison Bros: Glasgow 1896.
Pagan, James & Stoddart, J.H., Relics of Ancient Architecture and other Picturesque Scenes in Glasgow, David Bryce: Glasgow 1896.

Acknowledgements: Huge thanks to Nina Harris for guiding us to the spot where this old well could once be seen.

Trinity Well, Trinity Gask, Perthshire

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Healing Spring: OS Grid Reference — NN 9631 1812

Also Known as:

Canmore 25993

Getting Here

The spring is by the trees. The roof of the church is visible past the tree — The spring is in the trees. The roof of the church is visible past the tree

Take the B8062 North from Auchterarder, and turn right immediately after crossing Kinkell Bridge. Continue through the hamlet of Trinity Gask, and take the next turn left. The Well is situated in the wooded area of land to your left, before you reach the church on the right. I tried visiting in summer but was beaten back by the boscage of man high nettles, goose grass and brambles. An autumn visit was made, and access was readily available to the wooded area over a barbed wire fence from the field behind the wood.

Archeology & History

The Canmore description quotes from an August 1967 report by an Ordnance Survey inspector:

“Trinity Well is now dry, and all that remains is an overgrown hollow. A manhole cover nearby suggests the spring is now piped.”

On the day of my 2014 visit, the water was flowing from an issue on the field side of the woodland. There was some low walling on the field side of the enclosure, otherwise no masonry or paving was visible. Any there may have been is now either buried or robbed for building material.

The waters still flow despite a 1967 report to the contrary

The 1796 Statistical Account has this to say: ‘ The most noted well in the parish is at Trinity Gask. It is remarkable for the purity and lightness of its water; the spring is copious and perennial. Superstition, aided by the interested artifices of popish priests, raised, in times of ignorance and bigotry, this well to no small degree of celebrity. It was affirmed, that every person who was baptised with the water of this well, would never be seized with the plague….. But the extraordinary virtue of Trinity Gask well has perished with the downfall of superstition, and the introduction of a free and rational enquiry into nature and religion.’

Walling is visible behind the spring issue

The 1837 New Statistical Account goes on to say: ‘….the Trinity Well, a little to the South of the manse, of great renown in Popish days for the performing of miraculous cures, fortifying against plague, witchcraft and such other evils. The right of bleaching at this well is one of the privileges of the minister’.

The Rev. John Wilson writes, in The Gazetteer of Scotland: ‘…a noticeable object is a well famous in Roman times for alleged thaumaturgic properties…’.

Processions to the Well were made on Trinity Sunday and the first Sunday in June

References:

The (First) Statistical Account of Scotland, 1796, Volume 18, page 487
The New (Second) Statistical Account of Scotland, 1837, Volume 10, page 335
Morris, Ruth & Frank, Scottish Healing Wells, Alethea: Sandy 1981.
Wilson, John, The Gazetteer of Scotland, W.A. & K. Johnston: Edinburgh 1882

Holy Well, Hollinshead Hall, Tockholes, Lancashire

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Holy Well: OS Grid Reference – SD 6636 1994

Getting Here

Take the A675 road to Bolton from Abbey Village, going up the track opposite Piccadily farmhouse until you reach the ruins in the woods. The site can also be reached by going south down the Tockholes Road car park following the sign for Hollinshead Hall on your right.

Archaeology & History

Associated with Hollinshead Hall, which is now a ruin, the well is made of the same sandstone rubble as the hall with a stone slate roof. The building a single cell is built into a slope from which the spring arises and is encapsulated by it. Either side a high walls creating a sort of forecourt with side benches with inward-facing chamfered piers with ball finials at the ends. The well house itself is quite an attractive building and is certainly not thrown up, having a symmetrical facade with chamfered unglazed widows which are fitted with spear-headed iron bars and clearly the building has never been glazed. The gable end has a large oval opening with a matching one at the rear. In the centre is a heavy board door with a chamfered doorway. This doorway unfortunately is locked baring any entrance to the well house.

Peering in through the windows one can see how strong the vaulted roof is, adorned by a pendent ball in its centre. The spring’s water flows from a crudely carved lion’s head, either side of a reredo of Ionic colonnettes, with a sunken stone tank beneath or each side a rectangular recess which enclose rectangular pools. There is a diamond-paved floor with a central gutter draining from this well or trough at centre of rear wall.

Local tradition accounts that there was a site here from Medieval times and indeed, that the name Hollinshead was derived from a version of holy well although O.E hol, for hollow is more likely although there is a Halliwell Fold Farm nearby being derived from O.E halig for healing. The pool with steps down above the well house may be the original well of course. The discovery of a hoard of medieval coins in 1970s would support the date and perhaps they were an offering.

Folklore

Abram’s Blackburn (1877) is perhaps the first to state that the water was curative. However, anonymous quote in Nightingales History of Tockholes describes the well as:

“Here no less than five different springs of water, after uniting together and passing through a very old carved stone representing a lion’s head, flow into a well. To this Well pilgrimages were formerly made and the water which is of a peculiar quality, is remarkable as an efficacious remedy for ophthalmic complaints.”

Another tradition is that the site was a resting place for pilgrims to Whalley Abbey and that the trough was used as baptistery, however, this would be more likely to be the spring above the well house. It is probably a spring house, a structure built over a natural source of water for the storage of dairy products and other foods that needed to be kept fresh.

Reculsancy, was very prevalent in Lancashire and the well house does the bear the coat of arms of the Radcliffes . It would suggest why the structure is so ornate and suggest a 1600s date although many authorities suggest an 18^th century origin. The site would be a secret baptistery and its design as a dairy, would also help as well as being still function, certainly the presence of benches suggest this functionality. It appears to be too close to the house to be a garden folly such as a grotto! The suggestion of stained glass in the windows suggests something more significant discovered during the present stone roof’s construction. Indeed, the choice of the lion’s head is possibly that of the ‘Lion of Judah’, meaning Jesus providing rich and valuable water, although this is a common motif on many drinking fountains of course! Interesting, Cramshaw (1994) tells us that the site was in the 1980s the site of a well dressing, although what type is unclear and no other author has mentioned it as far as I am aware. Perhaps we shall never know the real origin of this delightful building.

References:

Abram, William Alexander, History of Blackburn, Toulmin: Blackburn 1877.
Billington, W.D., From Affetside to Yarrow, Ross Anderson: Bolton 1982.
Crawshaw, J., “Hollinshead Hall Holy Well”, in Source new series Issue 2, Winter 1994.

Edited from – Holy & Healing Wells

Holy Well, Watnall, Nottinghamshire

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Holy Well: OS Grid Reference – SK 499 456

Getting Here

A stone’s throw from Ikea and found off the B600 main road. Travelling to Greasley from Watnall, take first turning on the left after Royal Oak Wood. Travel up Trough Road, past the woods where it is best to park, then walk up Trough Lane and the well can be found on the right hand side, opposite a house called The Springs.

Archaeology & History

I am of the opinion that the ‘holy’ element of this well is a romanticism of the 1800s, but there is a possible record in the ‘The Manor of Bevall in the County of Nottingham’ document, commissioned by the Honourable Dame Elizabeth Capell in 1653. Amongst the records it appears a number of times as:

‘Holy Well Furlong 2 lands bounded with John Richards west and William Hickton east’.

A 1724 Capps Survey of Watnall Cantelupe notes that Joseph Richards had some lands lying in a close called the Flatts or Holliwell, which understandably relates to ‘Holy Well’. There is also note of a Holwell Croft field name in the 1500s at Greasley, which again may describe this site or another and such suggests that it derives from O.E. hol, meaning ‘hollow’, a common misconception when identifying prospective holy wells. Jeremy Harte (2008) in his English Holy Wells suggests that those sites called ‘Holy Well’ are pre-Medieval in origin so perhaps this site is one of the most ancient in the county.

On my first visit to this site I was told by an elderly man that he was baptised there (or water used from it used for his baptism), before attempting inexplicably in trying to discourage me from finding it (due to his wariness of me I failed to discover the nature of his baptism or of what denomination). According to locals in the lane the plaque and present state of the well dates from the 1980s and was done in partnership with the local council.

The house opposite is called ‘The Springs’ was this name of the well before the ‘present’ name and so it is ‘modern’ holy well per se, although I think the 18^th century survey is significant.

The well itself, is enclosed in a stone recess with a rusty iron gate with a dove affixed on it bearing the legend Holy Well. It is approached by a path walled along both sides which are adorned by a wide range of gnomes and garden ornaments..almost so you could be pixy led!

Folklore

A plaque near the well’s entrance has a local piece of folklore recorded. This relates that a local boy who lived opposite was very ill and bedridden. A local priest called for water to be drawn for the boy from the well. This was done and the boy became well.

Interestingly it’s the only legend of this type—one which records a cure—in all the Nottinghamshire holy wells. It is a shame one cannot find a date or check its provenance, a fact supported by local history author Mr. John Lee. The use of priest is significant. Does the story may indicate the Catholic revival in holy wells in the 19^th century? However, the only Catholic associations locally are that of Hilltop at Greasley for there was, and is, only a Methodist chapel in Watnall.

Extracted from Parish, R.B (2008) Holy Wells and healing springs of Nottinghamshire

Interested in holy wells and healing springs – http://insearchofholywellsandhealingsprings.wordpress.com

Nanny’s Well, Chapel le Frith, Derbyshire

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Holy Well: OS Grid-Reference – SK 061 810

Getting Here

Nanny's Well, Chapel-le-Frith — Nanny’s Well, Chapel-le-Frith

To find Nanny’s Well, take B5474 out of Chapel and take the right hand turning called Crossings road (which goes to Chinley) which is before Frith view on the left. Continue until the small wall surrounding the site can be seen on the right.

Archaeology & History

The name it is said to be either from St Ninian (less likely) or St Anne (more likely as she is also considered the mother of Mary and thus Grandmother of Jesus).

It is described in M.J.B Baddeley’s Peak district of Derbyshire (1913) and the neighbourhood as:

“a valuable but neglected spring of chalybeate water.”

Yet in 1895, a Manchester firm of Grace, Calvert and Thompson analysed it and found it:

“not polluted to any extent with organic matter of animal or vegetable origin and comes from a spring of considerable depth and that no surface water has become mixed with it’…in same respects the water of this well is of the same nature as that from the Tunbridge Wells springs.”

The site is now an iron pump by the side of Crossings Road, known as Nanny Well Road, enclosed in a low wall along which. The pump no longer works and the well capped but it can be heard and just about seen through a crack beneath.

Folklore

It was visited on Easter Morning, with sugar or licorice to make Spanish Water, and then the bottles were hung around their necks. The site is one of four wells dressed annually since the 1980s in July and the site is blessed.

Extracted from Parish, R. B., (2008) Holy Wells and Healing springs of Derbyshire

http://insearchofholywellsandhealingsprings.wordpress.com

St Bertram’s Well, Ilam, Staffordshire

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Holy Well: OS Grid Refence — SK 1371 5141

Getting Here

St Bertram’s Well, north of Ilam © Copyright Neil Theasby & licensed for reuse under Creative Commons Licence — St Bertram’s Well, Ilam © Neil Theasby, reused under Creative Commons Licence

The genuine St. Bertram’s well is not easy to find and I recommend using the OS map carefully. It is reached by taking the footpath that leads off at the left passing the cross out of the village. Follow this until the end of the dry stone walling on the right and then divert from the footpath to the right where the well can be seen. The second well is easily found in the field between the church and the Hall.

Archaeology and History

Bertram is an interesting local saint, dating from around the 7^th-8^th century. Briefly, he is said to be of Royal Irish lineage but after making a princess pregnant, escaped to England where he sheltered in the woods around Ilam. The story is told by Alexander, a monk, in the 13^th century who notes:

“They were in hiding in a dense forest when lo ! the time of her childbirth came upon them suddenly ; born of pain and river of sorrow! A pitiful child bed indeed! While Bertellinus went out to get the necessary help of a midwife the woman and her child breathed their last amid the fangs of wolves. Bertellinus on his return imagined that this calamity had befallen because of his own sin, and spent three days in mourning rites”.

As a result he became a hermit living in a cave in the valley near Ilam. Despite the earliest mention being Plot, the local geography is suggestive that this is the site of an early Christian hermitage site, although no mention of a well is noted in his legends it can be noted. Currently, the well is surrounded on four sides by varying low stone walling, about two feet or so at its highest (although it appears to have been built up and down over the time I have visited the well). The spring flows from a small, less than a foot square chamber, enclosed in stone and set into the bank through a channel in the rubble flow and out along the path towards it.

Since the 1990s, on the first Saturday in August, the Orthodox Church makes a pilgrimage to the site and blesses the well. Interestingly, literature available from the National Trust shop fails to mention this well, but notes a more substantial second St Bertram’s Well close by the church and surrounded by a rectangular stone wall with steps down, the water arises here at greater speed and flows into the nearby River Manifold. Visually it is more impressive and more accessible but whether there is any long tradition of this second well is unclear, but authors such as the Thompsons’s (2004) The Water of Life: Springs and Wells of Mainland Britain and Bord (2008) Holy Wells of Britain appear to have fostered its reputation.

Incidentally, the church boasts the remains of St Bertram’s shrine with foramina and the church yard has two Saxon crosses, making a visit to the village a must for those interested in early medieval history.

Folklore

“St Bertram’s Ash… grows over a spring which bears the name of the same Saint… The common people superstitiously believe, that tis very dangerous to break a bough from it: so great a care has St Bertram of his Ash to this very day. And yet they have not so much as a Legend amongst them, either of this Saint’s miracles, or what he was; onely that he was Founder of their Church”

Such notes Plot (1686) The Natural History of Stafford-Shire, the earliest reference of this fascinating site. By Browne (1888) in his An Account of the Three Ancient Cross Shafts, the Font, and St Bertram’s Shrine, at Ilam, noted that the ash had gone, but the water was still being used. He states that:

“The late Mrs Watts Russell always had her drinking water from it.”

Extracted and amended from the forthcoming Holy wells and healing springs of Staffordshire by R. B. Parish (2008)

http://insearchofholywellsandhealingsprings.wordpress.com

Becket’s Well, Otford, Kent

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Holy Well: OS Grid Reference – TQ 531 592

Getting Here

Becket's Well, Kent — Becket’s Well, Otford

The well now lies on private land and feds a trout farm (Beckets Well Trout Farm at The Castle House, Sevenoaks Rd, Otford in Sevenoaks). To find Becket’s Well go along the A225 to the centre of Otford, park in the car park ( in front of the row of terraced shops ) near the Bishop’s Palace. Take a small private road to Castle farm, now as said, a trout farm. Inquire here, if you are able to visit the well, which lies within a complex of fish pools to the east of the farm house.

Archaeology & History

The site has been well recorded in recent centuries, for example an account of 1876, describes the site as, “endorsed within a wall, forming a chamber 15 ft across and 10 ft deep.” Both the chamber’s appearance and shape suggests that is would be ideal for immersions, of which Harper and Kershaw (1923) notes that bath and steps are defied annually by the hop pickers. It is interesting to note that Thorne (1876), with no apparent reference, gives another connection with the saint, suggesting that, “to have used by the saint as a bath.” No subsequent or previous work draws notice to this, so it is likely to be antiquarian fancy. Another more plausible possibility is that it was used by the leper hospital found on this site around 1228. They would have clearly made use of the pure water for medicinal purposes and perhaps indeed used it as a bath.

Kirkham (1948) notes it was suffering from neglect being “now said to be choked up and half full of tins.” This decline would appear to have started a long time ago, as a folly tower, now demolished, was built on Otford Mount (a nearby earthwork), from the well’s stone work. Consequently, this degraded condition prompted excavation in the 1950s by the Otford and District Historical Society; of which the following details of their findings are briefly described.

The report noted that the well consisted of two chambers, with water emerging from two arched outlets into the first of these. This chamber is surrounded on three sides by walls, thirty-five feet by thirteen feet (east end), the walls are eight feet high, and at the same level of the ground. Six steps at the south-east end give access to the well chamber. The sluice wall is five feet high, eight feet wide, and is substantially buttressed on the western front. Water runs through this sluice wall, between steep banks westward, through a lower chamber, twenty-seven feet (north sides), and thirty-five feet (west side). The water then flowed through watercress and finally through an underground, probably Tudor conduit. This conduit then passes through the site of the Palace. This stream once fed a moat, but now discharges into the Bubblestone Brook, a Darenth tributary.

Local common thought was that the well is the remains of a Roman bath house, a belief echoed by its present owner; and a view endorsed by both Ward (1932) and Harper and Kershaw (1923), who note that it “is really a Roman Bath.” This view is further supported by the two surrounding Roman villas, and hence one aim of the excavation was to evaluate this long held claim. Yet, although they showed that the well had gone through considerable renovation and rebuilding over the centuries, no remains could be positively be dated to this period. This renovation, of course, resulted in a rarity of deposits, and hence with a lack of artefacts, the subsequent interpretation was thus difficult.

The excavation was further handicapped by the waterlogged conditions. Both may have influenced the results. Consequently, there are still doubts, and the concept of a Roman origin has not been satisfactorily disproved. The earliest written record is from Otford Ministers accounts of 1440-1, indicating that by then a stone structure existed here, but how old that was again is not clear. It states:

“To a carpenter for two days to make 2 gutters to bring water from the pool of the garden to the moat and for working on and laying another gutter beyond the water course and coming from the fountain of St. Thomas to old garden, 12d; and to a carpenter for one day covering a gutter with timber and cresting it, 6d. And for two masons for 2 days for placing and laying and making a new stone wall of the fountain of St. Thomas, broken for the pipe of the water conduit, 3s, taking between them daily 12d. To five labourers 10 days digging the soil between the said fountain and moat to lay in the leaden pipe of said conduit16s 8d taking each daily 4d.”

The present floor may be ascribed to that period; although it would seem to cover an earlier lower flint floor (again possibly Roman). Between 1520-1520, Archbishop Warkham, pulled down the then existing Manor house and built the Palace, covering four acres. This consequently required a better water supply, and hence the well was improved: the original lower chamber is said to originate from this period. The full purpose of the lower chamber is not clear, but it is believed that it may have housed cisterns giving a greater flow of water. When Henry VIII acquired the Palace from Archbishop Crammer in 1537, he spent money on improvements to the estate, and probably the well. The sluice gate, strengthened by Warham, was now supported by buttresses. These may have supported a conduit house. This was recorded in 1573:

“The condiyte house or well conteyning in length XXXVI foote and in breadth XIX fote to be taken downe and newe sett upp will coste XXX pounds. The pypes conveyinge the water from hence to the offyces and small sesterns to be amended will coste Xiii.”

By the 1600s, the Palace was in disrepair and the well was only used for private consumption by Castle farm. Despite this, restoration still continued and the north, east and south wall saw upper improvements by the 1700s. In the lower chamber a stone west wall was erected on Warham’s brick foundations. By this time, the south wall was beginning to collapse and was rebuilt in the 1800s.

By 1954 repairs were again needed, as the north wall was collapsing. Goodsall (1968) reported that even after its excavation in the late 1950s, the site then enclosed in railings was forlorn and overgrown with weeds. Forty years on, the present condition is similar to that illustrated in the contemporary photo, taken during the excavation: the intervening decades have seen the inevitable degradation, through time, of its infrastructure. Fortunately, the hideous railings have been removed, obviously to erect the trout farm infrastructure, whose water is supplied by the well. The walls appear now comparably greatly overgrown, which has probably preserved them, and the sluice wall, north, south and west walls appear the most ruinous, with the walling falling away towards the sluice wall. The walling was best preserved at the east end.

The clear spring appears to flow rapidly from its source, and has the appearance of being deeper. As stated, it now has now a commercial function, providing good quality water for the raising of trout flowing through a series of fish ponds replacing the cress beds. The owner in the 1990s, a Mrs. Burrows, believed that the well was originally roofed. The results of the excavation did not indicate this although it may be a mix-up with the possibility of a conduit house over the well. She also stated the water stayed the same temperature through the winter and summer, a constant 50⁰C, certainly beneficial to bathers.

Folklore

One of the best known holy wells among Kent antiquarians no doubt due to the colourful legend associated with it. This tells that whilst living here in the old manor—the ruins of which called the Bishop’s Palace still stand—St. Thomas bemoaned the lack of good water. As a remedy he struck his staff into the ground and clear water gushed forth. This is a familiar folklore motif and we shall see it again referred to at other Kent sites. Perhaps it recalls the saint ordering well digging to provide fresh water and marked the position with his staff! The legends earliest reference is made by Lambard (1571):

“..stake his staffe into the drie ground ( in a place thereof now called Sainte Thomas Well) and immediately the same water appeared, which running plentifully, serveth the offices of the new house to the present day.”

The well was said to be curative, but the exact nature of its curative powers are unknown, and although belief in them was waning by 1800s, rumours of its use continued to the last world war. The Gentlemen’s Magazine of June 1820 gives the only recorded account of a cure and states that:

“an old man, who, crippled by rheumatism, was completely renovated by this bath to health and action of circumstance witnessed by the late Lord Stanhope and several of the neighbouring gentry.”

(Extracted and amended from original blog page, which includes and addition holy well – Colet’s Well –
http://insearchofholywellsandhealingsprings.wordpress.com/2012/01/12/the-holy-wells-of-otford-kent/ – and from the forthcoming Holy Wells and Healing Springs of Kent – references quoted in the piece can be found therein.)

Arns Well, Glasgow, Lanarkshire

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Healing Well (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NS 5996 6406

Also Known as:

Arms Well

Archaeology & History

Taking its name from the local dialect word relating to Alder trees (Alnus glutinosua) that grew above the source of the waters, Arns Well had already been destroyed by the end of the 19th century, but prior to this it was renowned as one of the social gathering places in Glasgow Green. Highlighted on the original Ordnance Survey of the area in 1865, Arns Well was also a place where artists and poets gathered – and a number of old prints of Glasgow were drawn from here.

Originally the waters emerged from marshy ground and used to be known as “the Peat Bog,” but by 1777 a small well house was built to contain the waters and make it a feature in the wider architectural landscape of the Glasgow Green park area. Once the spring had been channelled, its waters “were considered to be amongst the best to be had in Glasgow, particularly for making tea and adding to whisky.” In James Clelands’s (1813) municipal survey of the area he told how some thought that the water supply from Arns Well was “inexhaustible.”

References:

Anonymous, Glasgow Green and Roundabout, Friends of the Peoples Palace: Bridgeton n.d. (c.1983)
Bennett, Paul, Ancient and Holy Wells of Glasgow, TNA: 2017.
Brotchie, T.C.F., “Holy Wells in and Around Glasgow,” in Old Glasgow Club Transactions, volume 4, 1920.
Cleland, James, A Description of the Manner of Improving the Green of Glasgow, R. Chapman: Glasgow 1813.
Grant, William (ed.), The Scottish National Dictionary – volume 1, SNDA: Edinburgh 1934.
Renwick, Robert & Lindsay, John, The History of Glasgow – volume 3, Maclehose: Glasgow 1934.

Adam’s Well, Speldhurst, Kent

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Holy Well: OS Grid Reference – TQ 556 382

Getting Here

Adam's Well, Speldhurst — Adam’s Well, Speldhurst

To find Adam’s Well take the footpath from near the High Rocks Inn, leading up under the railway, continuing along the edge of a copse and into open area. Where the path turns sharp right one can see, looking ahead at this junction, a large pond and above this the black and white cottage. Beside this an arch where the spring arises. To gain access, go through the gate ahead and turn into the drive of the house called Adam’s Well and ask permission to see the well as it lives on private land.

Archaeology & History

The earliest reference to the site is found in Thomas Burr’s (1766) History of Tunbridge Wells:

“on forest a little beyond the Rocks, a spring of water was discovered, which was palled in and called Adam’s well. For what particular reason this spring was taken such notice of, it is not now very easy to determine.”

Burr (1766) perhaps implies that the well was discovered within living memory, and its fame being established before that of Tunbridge.

MacKinnon (1934) in his History of Speldhurst, perhaps drawing upon an earlier source as well as describing it in greater detail, clearly indicates it origins as a holy well, in the use of the words holy water below:

“Adam’s Well is situated in this Manor, it was famous long before the Tunbridge Wells waters were discovered, and issue from high ground at Langton. In much repute in ancient times, it is impregnated with no mineral, saline, nitrous or earthy matter, whatever, it is quite free of sediment, and was called in old times a ‘holy water.’ In 1765, the owner of this well, on digging into the rock to enlarge the pool or bath came upon an ancient stone arch, whose date could but mere matter of conjecture. This arch can be seen at the present day.”

Combined with the traces of medieval stonework, the medieval origin is supported by its name: Adam, being taken from a local fourteenth century landowner, John Adam. Fortunately, Adam’s Well still exists, much as MacKinnon (1934) describes, now enclosed in the private grounds of Adam’s Well House: a bungalow, built in the nineteenth century, after a bout of vandalism, to house a caretaker for the well. The well itself arises in a shallow, square brick-lined chamber. Enclosing this is a large stone alcove, built to allow a sheltered access to the well during inclement weather. The back wall of this shelter is of a crude nature, indicating that it may indeed be of considerable age. A stone set in its arch notes: ‘ADAMS WELL 1868.’

This date presumably refers to when the well was repaired, and the house built. In front of this is a much larger and deeper rectangular stone chamber. I was informed by the then owner in the mid-1990s, Mrs Wolf, that dogs and horses were washed within this. Over this chamber is an iron grill with the letters ‘AW’ in its centre. Mrs Wolf also told me that the quality of the water was so good that it was bottled and stored on ships for long periods. Much of the popularity of the water came from the fact that it lay along the busy old road from Peacehaven to London.

Folklore

Burr (1766) implies that its powers, to cure human ailments, were largely forgotten and:

“…at present it is only famous for the cure of mangy dogs, in which case it is esteemed an infallible remedy.”

Yet, John Britton (1836) in the Descriptive sketches of Tunbridge Wells and the Calverley estate; with brief notices of the picturesque scenery, seats, and antiquities in the vicinity describes it as being noted for:

“its transparency of its waters, and for its efficacy in some cutaneous disorders.”

Recent analysis showed that the water contains copper, which perhaps explains its lower popularity compared to Tunbridge, as copper salts were not as efficacious as iron salts. This is supported by Mrs. Wolf who noted that it had not cured her rheumatism!

Extracted from the forthcoming Holy wells and healing springs of Kent

References:

Britton, John, (1836) Descriptive sketches of Tunbridge Wells and the Calverley estate; with brief notices of the picturesque scenery, seats, and antiquities in the vicinity
Burr, T., (1766) History of Tunbridge Wells
MacKinnon, Donald D., (1934) History of Speldhurst