Healing Well: OS Grid Reference – NT 225 691
Archaeology & History
Unlike the Adam’s Well in Kent, deep daan saaaf, this northern site of the same name is not only long lost, but we can find no traditions relating it either—something of an oddity for these northern climes. It could once be found in the open meadows east of Colinton, near where now the Redford Barracks exist and was a puzzle to the regional historian Stuart Harris (1996), who could find no early accounts of the site. Although its name may relate to a local man called Adam, there are other examples of wells with this name from Kent to Scotland: the Kent example is deemed as an authentic holy well, whilst examples in Yorkshire and those in southern Scotland relate to the waters themselves being known as ‘Adam’s Ale’ or Adam’s Wine’—an old nickname for water itself!
References:
- Bennett, Paul, Ancient and Holy Wells of Edinburgh, TNA: Alva 2017.
- Harris, Stuart, The Place-Names of Edinburgh: Their Origins and History, Gordon Wright: Edinburgh 1996.
© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian
This is the first detailed guide ever written on the holy wells and healing springs in and around the ancient city of Edinburgh, Scotland. Written in a simple A-Z gazetteer style, nearly 70 individual sites are described, each with their grid-reference location, history, folklore and medicinal properties where known. Although a number them have long since fallen prey to the expanse of Industrialism, many sites can still be visited by the modern historian, pilgrim, christian, pagan or tourist.