Once you’re in Edinburgh, there are so many ways to get here (and it’s easy to get lost with city directions, depending on where you’re starting out from), so just get to the south-side of Edinburgh Castle and find the long cobbled-road of the Grassmarket. Ask people if you can’t find it, they’re very helpful in Edinburgh (totally different from London!). It’s the large carved square stone-feature near the bottom of the road.
Archaeology & History
Very much the product of the Industrial Age, this large ornate architectural feature at the cobbled junction of Grassmarket, Cowgatehead and West Bow, was built by Robert Mylne in 1681. The well gave the people of the city a water supply after redirecting waters from the Comiston Springs, 3 miles away, into Edinburgh. It was one of a number of public wells constructed in the city specifically for use by the general populace “when a dry season occurred,” reported Mr Colston (1890). A dry season?! – in Scotland?! In the 19th century it became unreliable as a source of good drinking water. It has no archaic animistic veracity.
In Edinburgh, get to the west-end of Princes Street (nearest the castle), and where there’s the curious mess of 6 roads nearly skewing into each other, head down Queensferry Street for 450 yards until, just before you go over the bridge, walk down Bells Brae on your left, then turn right down Miller Row where you’ll see the sign to St. Bernard’s Well. St. George’s Well is the small, dilapidated spray-painted building right at the water’s edge 200 yards before St. Bernard’s site.
Archaeology & History
Compared to its companion holy well 200 yards downstream, poor old St. George’s Well is a paltry by comparison, in both historical and literary senses. The site was said to have been “set up in competition with St Bernard’s Well but never achieving its purpose”, wrote Ruth & Frank Morris (1982)—which is more than a little sad. Not on the fact that it failed, but on the fact that some halfwits were using local people’s water supply to make money out of and, when failing, locked up the medicinal spring and deny access to people to this day!
In Mr Grant’s Old & New Edinburgh (1882), the following short narrative was given of the site:
“A plain little circular building was erected in 1810 over (this) spring that existed a little to the westwards of St. Bernard’s, by Mr MacDonald of Stockbridge, who named it St. George Well. The water is said to be the same as the former, but if so, no use has been made of it for many years…”
St George’s Well, looking NSt George’s Well, looking SW
The association to St. George was in fact to commemorate the jubilee of King George III that year. If you visit the place, the run-down little building with its grafitti-door has a small stone engraving etched above it with the date ‘1810’ carved.
As the waters here were found to possess mainly iron, then smaller quantities of sulphur, magnesia and salts, it was designated as a chalybeate well. Its curative properties would be very similar to that of St. Bernard’s Well, which were very good at,
“assisting digestion in the stomach and first passages … cleansing the glandular system, and carrying their noxious contents by their respective emunctories out of the habit, without pain or fatigue; on the contrary, the patient feels himself lightsome and cheerful, and by degrees an increase to his general health, strength and spirits. The waters of St. Bernard’s Well operates for the most part as a strong diuretic. If drunk in a large quantity it becomes gently laxative, and powerfully promotes insensible perspiration. It likewise has a wonderfully exhilarating influence on the faculties of the mind.”
Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments, Scotland, Inventory of the Ancient & Historical Monuments of the City of Edinburgh, HMSO: Edinburgh 1951.
So you’re in Edinburgh. Get to the west-end of Princes Street (nearest the castle), and where there’s the curious mess of 6 roads nearly skewing into each other, head down Queensferry Street for 450 yards until, just before you go over the bridge, walk down Bells Brae on your left, then turn right down Miller Row to the river where you’ll see the sign pointing the way! Walk alongside the river, past St George’s Well for another coupla hundred yards until you reach the large Romanesque domed building right by the riverside on your left. Steps take you down to it.
Archaeology & History
St Bernard’s Well, 1790
When J. Taylor (1790) wrote his singular book on St Bernard’s Well, this sacred site could be seen in landscape that was described as “a wild, romantic, and very pleasant appearance.” How things change! Although the waters of Leith below which the well arises give the region, still, that air of romanticism that Taylor described, on either side of the waters the stone buildings of the Industrialists have grown, denouncing Nature. But to be honest, it’s still a fine place, considering it’s near the middle of a city!
Small spring above the well
In the shrubs and small trees on the slopes just above the architectural edifice that now covers St Bernard’s Well, after rainy days you can see several small springs of water running down the slope and onto the modern path. In earlier centuries there were six of these springs next to each other which ran a short distance down the slope and converged into two, which then ran into a small stone trough. Local people used these fresh waters, not only for basic needs, but for medicinal purposes too.
It seems that the earliest mention of what Stuart Harris (1996) called “this fancy name” of St. Bernard’s Well appeared in an article in The Scots Magazine of September 1760. It clearly shows how the Scottish Freemasons played their part in bringing the waters of this healing well to the fore:
“A mineral well has lately been discovered between the village and the Water of Leith and Stockbridge, about half a mile north of Edinburgh, which is said to be equal in quality to any of the most famous in Britain. To preserve the well from the injury of the weather, and prevent its being overflowed by the Water of Leith, on the banks of which it is situated, a stone covering is to be erected over it. The foundation-stone of this building was laid September 15th (by a deputation from the Earl of Leven, the present Grand Master of Scotland), by Alexander Drummond, brother of Provost Drummond, lately British Consul at Aleppo, and Provincial Grand Master of all the Lodges in Asia and in Europe, out of Britain, holding of the Grand Lodge of Scotland. He was attended by many of the brethren, in their proper clothing and insignia, preceded by a band of music, and the ceremony was performed in the presence of a great number of spectators. It is called St. Bernard’s Well.”
The following year, the poet James Wilson Claudero wrote a poem about the laying of the foundation stone at the well, in which the medicinal virtues of the waters were described. A section of the poem is as follows:
“When heaven propitious to grant his desire
To the utmost extent his heart could require,
For the health of the poor sent this sanative well,
A blessing to all that around it do dwell;
This water so healthful near Edinburgh doth rise
Which not only Bath but Moffat outvies.
Most diseases of nature it quickly doth cure.
“It cleans the intestines and appetite gives
While morbific matter it quite away drives.
Its amazing effects can not be denied,
And drugs are quite useless where it is applied,
So what doctors can’t cure is done by this spring
Preserved till this year of great Drummond’s reign.”
St Bernards Well, looking NSt Bernards Well, looking SW
A few years later in 1786, the construction we see today which now covers the medicinal waters, began to be built. The ‘fashion’ of the rich and wealthy acquiring healing wells used by local people was in vogue at the time and the place became frequented by the usual snooty class of doods who played their social gatherings here. The Scots Magazine gave a brief resumé of what unfolded—intriguingly at Beltane (perhaps the day when its waters were of greatest repute, as is the case at the majority of sacred wells), telling:
“On the 1st of May, the foundation-stone of the mineral well of St Bernard’s, in the vicinity of Edinburgh, was laid in the presence of several gentlemen of the neighbourhood. A plate of metal was sunk into the stone, with the following inscription:
Erected For the benefit of the public at the sole expense of Francis Garden, Esq. of Troop A.D. 1789 Alexander Nasmith, Architect, John Wilson, Builder.
This building is erected in the most picturesque spot in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, and when finished, from the elegance of the plan, and the excellent quality of the materials, will long be an ornament to the city, and prove a lasting monument of the refined taste, liberality, and public spirit of the honourable founder.”
As the reputation of the place spread amongst those who could read and had money, so the day-to-day habits of local people, who kept drinking the waters and collecting them for domestic use, became increasingly frowned upon. Some rich doods bought the land and, thereafter, local people were only allowed to use the well at certain times and in certain ways. I kid you not! This is a familiar tale at a lot of city sites. After the construction of the Romanesque building that still covers the well (based on an ancient temple at Tivoli, Italy, with a statue on top of the goddess of Health, Hygeia) which, to this day, hides the waters inside behind lock and key, the land-owner Lord Gardenstone appointed and paid a ‘keeper of the well’. The ‘keeper—George Murdoch of Stockbridge —had a series of rules to abide by, for which he got paid a tidy sum. Gardenstone wrote to him:
“George — From long experience I entertain a very favourable opinion of your honesty and decent manners. I, therefore, am resolved to make a trial of your capacity to perform properly the duties of a trust which is of a public nature, and requires good temper, patience, and discretion.
“I hereby authorise and appoint you to be Keeper of St Bernard’s Well during pleasure, and you are to observe punctually the following directions and rules, or such other regulations as may be found more expedient and may be hereafter prescribed:
“I. You are to furnish proper glasses and cups for drinking the water.
“II. During the proper season you are to attend the well, at least from six till nine, every morning. During the above period none shall have access to drink or use the water but those who shall pay at the moderate rates subjoined.
“III. Such as choose to subscribe for the season, from the 1st of May to the 1st of October, shall pay down, before they begin to drink, at least five shillings sterling.
“IV. Persons who do not choose to subscribe, but choose at their pleasure to drink the water any time of the morning period, occasionally, shall pay before they begin to drink every morning — for grown persons each one penny, and for children each one halfpenny; or at the rate of sixpence and threepence per week respectively.
“V. For water drawn from the well to be used at a distance, in bottles or other vessels in the mornings, payment must be made at the rate of one halfpenny for every Scots pint.
“VI. No person shall be allowed, on any pretence, to bathe their limbs or sores at, or in sight of, the well during the morning period.
“VII. All persons who are either unable or unwilling to pay as above, shall have free access to the use of the waters from ten to one every forenoon; and those who have once paid may return and use the waters at any time of the day.
“VIII. The keeper shall attend from five to seven o’clock in the afternoon for the service of all who have paid; and after seven for all without distinction.
“IX. Upon a proper certificate from any regular physician, surgeon, or apothecary of Edinburgh, the keeper shall supply poor persons with water at any time prescribed.
“X. The proper and customary method of drinking at mineral waters is, that persons after drinking a glass or cup of water retire immediately and walk about, or take other exercise for an interval of at least five minutes, both as a benefit to themselves, and to make way for other water drinkers. A contrary practice prevails at St Bernard’s, and sometimes a crowd of people continue at the well till they have drunk their quota. Hereafter every person must retire as above, and the keeper must require them to do so, this regulation being very necessary.
“XI. Another irregularity, prejudicial to the credit and use of the waters, has prevailed and must also be corrected, which is that quantities of the water are carried to distant parts in open vessels. All mineral waters should be transported in well- corked bottles or other close vessels. The keeper must strictly adhere to this regulation, and suffer no water to be carried off in open vessels.
“Hints and observations for the better regulation and public use of those waters will be thankfully received by the proprietor.
“Some accounts of the virtues of this mineral water, and of certain remarkable cures performed by the proper use of it, will soon be published by a medical gentleman of character and experience.
“N.B. — The effects of this water when used in making either tea or punch are remarkably agreeable.
St Bernards Well on the 1819 Kirlands map
This must have caused some friction amongst locals, and no doubt given Mr Murdoch problems at times, as he would be denying the people who were born and bred here access to their drinking and medicinal spring. And so a missive was written on July 4, 1810, which instructed the keeper “to supply the poor with water gratis each day from eleven to twelve o’ clock noon.” Sensible…..
By now, the properties and reputation of the waters were widespread among the elitists and money-addicts. St Bernard’s Well was being compared with the famous healing waters of Bath, Harrogate, Strathpeffer and more. Its cause was encouraged by a series of scientific reports that showed a variety of health-giving minerals in good quantities; and many cases of ‘cures’ were reported by those who drank here. When the local doctor, J. Taylor (1790) opened his treatise on this very issue, he began,
“In the course of my practice, having occasion to visit most of the families in Stockbridge, especially of the poorer sort, I was informed that St Bernard’s Well had been of great benefit to people that resorted to it for various complaints…”
Entrance to the wellSt Bernards Well on 1851 map
Many more cases were to follow. It was the chemical constituents in St. Bernard’s waters that did the trick—although most modern folk would squirm at the very look and whiff of them, as Taylor reported how “the peculiar odour of this water is somewhat nauseous”! That’s because they are primarily sulphurous in nature, along with good traces of iron, magnesia and salts. I’ve drank such waters at some of Yorkshire chalybeates and found them damn invigorating – but most folk won’t touch them with a barge-pole! (chlorinated flouridated tap-water seems most folk’s preference these days) Dr Taylor told how St. Bernard’s Well was very good at,
“assisting digestion in the stomach and first passages … cleansing the glandular system, and carrying their noxious contents by their respective emunctories out of the habit, without pain or fatigue; on the contrary, the patient feels himself lightsome and cheerful, and by degrees an increase to his general health, strength and spirits. The waters of St. Bernard’s Well operates for the most part as a strong diuretic. If drunk in a large quantity it becomes gently laxative, and powerfully promotes insensible perspiration. It likewise has a wonderfully exhilarating influence on the faculties of the mind.”
He thereafter cited a number of cases of people with various ailments whose illnesses were cured by these waters. I recommend a perusal of his work and the other references below for specifics on such matters. The writings on this one sacred site are plentiful indeed, and the bibliographic references are but a morsel of works that describe it.
Folklore
St Bernards Well in 1825
Local tradition ascribed the discovery of the medicinal waters here by three local boys from Heriot, years before the legendary St. Bernard got in on the act; and, despite the wishes of many, St. Bernard of Clairvaux was not in any way related to the legendary Nursie of Blackadder fame (can anyone find a short link so as to educate the unenlightened on this matter?). His hagiography (biography of a saint) tells that his saint’s day was August 20, and his symbols were: a white dog, a chained demon and beehives. Whether any of these symbols related to any indigenous myths at the site is difficult to say.
Mr Cumberland Hill (1887) told the story of how this spring acquired its christian title:
“There is an ancient oral tradition in the district (we read of it also in an old book when we were young) that St Bernard visited Scotland. There are different ways of telling the legend, but the following appears to be the general version. St Bernard, while preaching the second crusade in France and Germany, was advised to go to Scotland as a country rich in faith and fighting men. He was disappointed with his reception at court. In grief, aggravated by ill-health, he withdrew and lived in a cave in the neighbourhood of the spring. There certainly was a cave of considerable dimensions in the steep cliffs to the westward. Its entrance was covered up by the building of the wall that bounds the back of Randolph Crescent, but when it formed part of Lord Moray’s grounds we, and the other boys of Stockbridge, knew that cave well. The saint’s attention was attracted by the number of birds that resorted to the spring. He drank of its healing waters, and, soothed by the sound of the river and the beauty of the scenery — the valley, still very beautiful, must then have been surpassingly fair — his health and serenity of mind returned. He called the inhabitants of the district to the spring, revealed to them its virtues, and, after bestowing upon the people his blessing, he returned to his place of public duty. Christendom concurs that this was the blessing of a good man. He was canonised by the Roman Catholic Church, but as canonisation is growing to be an invidious distinction, we quote Luther’s opinion: “If there ever lived on the earth a God-fearing and holy monk, it was St Bernard of Clairvaux.” We give the tradition as a tradition, not as history, though it is as credible and certainly more creditable than many of the legends of the saints.”
Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments, Scotland, Inventory of the Ancient & Historical Monuments of the City of Edinburgh, HMSO: Edinburgh 1951.
Described in Hope & Telford’s (1813) rare work, this little-known holy well has escaped the attention of all surveyors since then. It was one of four sacred and healing sites in the village and “the most copious” of them all, they said.
Located a little to the east of the old churchyard, chemical analysis showed its water to contain carbonates and sulphates of lime, “muriate of soda and a magnesium salt in very minute proportion, and carbonate of iron in a still smaller” amount.
Covering slabs on the wellThe ‘Spring’ on 1894 map
Until recently, the waters of St. Margaret could still be seen in the small copse of trees, just off the footpath, but they have now been covered in large stone slabs. Underneath them, you can clearly hear the sound of the rushing water still pouring out of the ground, quite copiously, as Hope & Telford said! A little further down the slope—into which the waters have cut a tiny glen—the ground is very boggy and marshy due to the outflow from the well. However, the waters here seem very dodgy indeed and it isn’t recommended that you try to drink them! (in the adjacent trees is a large dump site)
It is likely that the St. Margaret dedication here relates to the 11th century Scottish Queen, who was believed to have landed at nearby North Queensferry, known as St. Margaret’s Hope. Literary history tells that she became a Roman Catholic.
Standing Stone (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NT 2139 7001
Archaeology & History
Cloven Stone on 1855 map
Highlighted on the earliest OS-map of 1855 and the Knox Map of 1816 in non-antiquated lettering as a ‘Standing Stone’, the Edinburgh historian Stuart Harris (1996) thought it was an authentic site. He was probably right. First named in land rentals in 1631, it was known by local people as the Clovenstone and used to stand in a park of the same name, before quarrying works extended into the area and destroyed it in the 1870s. Mr Harris thought that it may have been a pair of uprights, but the term ‘cloven’ could just as well mean it was a stone that had a split in it.
References:
Harris, Stuart, The Place-Names of Edinburgh, Gordon Wright: Edinburgh 1996.
Healing Well (lost): OS Grid Reference – NT 654 993
Archaeology & History
Wells that are dedicated to sheep are none-too-common—and this one on the remote Isle of May between Edinburgh and Fife only received its commemoration, tradition tells, not too many centuries back. It is described singularly in John Dickson’s (1899) fine work, where he informs us that,
“The Sheep Well lies to the west of the lighthouse. Said to have got its name from a sheep having been drowned in it. Its water is useless for household purposes, and it occasionally becomes dry during the hot season.”
Its present condition and precise location is unknown. If an islander chances upon this site and knows its present condition, please get some photos and let us know how it’s fairing.
References:
Dickson, John, Emeralds Chased in Gold; or, The Isles of the Forth, Oliphant: Edinburgh 1899.
This fascinating looking carving (in my personal Top 10 of all-time favourites cup-and-rings in the UK!) was unfortunately destroyed sometime between 1918 and 1920. A huge pity, as the design on the rock is almost unique in its ‘linear’ system of cups running a considerable length across the surface of the stone (like the similar design found at Old Bewick in Northumberland).
Wilson’s 1851 drawing of the Witches’ StoneSimpson’s 1866 drawing of the Witches Stone
Shown first of all on Kirkwood’s Environs of Edinburgh map in 1817 (above), this legendary rock was found amidst a cluster of other cup-and-ring stones at Tormain (some are still there) and was initially said by Daniel Wilson (1851) to have been the giant capstone of a cromlech that once stood here, but whose structure had fallen away. This idea is implied in the earliest drawing we have of the stone in Wilson’s magnum opus (above); Sir J.Y. Simpson (1867) gave us a similar impression with his drawing a few years later. But upon visiting the Witches Stone just as his book was going to the press, Mr Wilson visited the site and proclaimed that he “altogether doubted if they are the remains of a cromlech”, and what rested here were more probably just fascinating geological remains, with even more fascinating carvings on top!
In the years that followed Wilson’s initial description, the Witches Stone was visited and described by a number of eager antiquarians. Simpson (1867) gave us a quite revealing account, telling:
“On the farm of Bonnington, about a mile beyond the village of Ratho…are the remains of ‘this partially ruined cromlech’…with the capstones partially displaced, as if it had slid backwards upon the oblique plane of the huge stones or stone which still supports it. Two or three large blocks lie in front of the present props. Its site occupies a most commanding view of the valley of the Almond, and of the country and hills beyond. The large capstone is a block of secondary basalt or whinstone, about twelve feet long, ten in breadth and two in thickness. Its upper surface has sculptured along its median line a long row of some twenty-two cup-cuttings; and two more cup-cuttings are placed laterally: one, half a foot to the left of the central row and at its base; the other, two feet to the right of the tenth central cup and near the edge of the block. The largest of the cups are about three inches in diameter and half an inch in depth; but most of them are smaller and shallower than this…”
A few years later another early petroglyph authority, J. Romilly Allen (1882), visited the Witches Stone and found “an Ordnance bench mark (had been) cut on the stone itself”! He then continued with his own description of this once-important megalithic site:
“The Witch’s Stone is a natural boulder of whinstone, rounded and smoothed by glacial action, whoso upper surface slopes at an angle of about 35° with the horizon. The length of the sloping face is 8 feet and at the top is a flat place 2 feet wide. The breadth of the stone is 11 feet 3 inches at the upper end, and 4 feet at the lower end. The thickness varies from 2 to 3 feet. The highest part of the stone is 6 feet 6 inches above the ground, and the lowest 1 foot 6 inches. It rests on what has originally been a portion of the same boulder, but is now a mass of whinstone broken up into several fragments, which serve as supports to prop up the stone above. Viewed from the north side the whole presents the appearance of a cromlech, the upper stone forming the cap, and the disintegrated portion below the supports. This notion, however, will be clearly seen to be erroneous on looking at it from the opposite side, as shown on the accompanying sketch…where the crack separating the two portions of the boulder is very apparent… The sculpturings consist of twenty-four cups varying in diameter from 1½ to 3 inches. Twenty-two of these cups are arranged in an approximately straight line along the sloping face of the stone, and divide it into two almost equal parts. The two remaining cups lie, one 7½ inches to the left of the lowest cup of the central row, and the other 2 feet 3 inches to the right of the ninth cup up the stone… The field in which the Witch’s Stone is situated is called “Knock-about.” The sloping face of the stone has been much polished by the practice of people climbing on to the top and sliding down. Some of the cups are almost obliterated in consequence. The stone forms a very prominent feature in the view, and must always have attracted attention from its peculiar shape.”
Some twenty years after Allen, the megalithomaniac Fred Coles (1903) came and checked the Witches Stone out for himself and, as happens, had a few additional things to say about the place:
“Although this huge boulder and its cup-marks have been more than once figured and described, I found, on a close examination of the broad surface of the Stone, that none of the illustrations showed the cup-marks in their exact relation to each other, nor in their true relation to the contour of the Stone. The drawing shown above…was made after a careful measurement by triangulation of the Stone; and it is claimed to be the first that shows that the cups, two and twenty in number, are not disposed in one continuous line, but that thirteen follow each other from the high south edge of the stone for a distance of exactly 6 feet, and nine others lie a few inches to the west, occupying a space 3 feet long of the overcurving edge of the north end. It is further shown that, at a point 2 feet 3 inches west of the ninth cup-mark, there is another one quite as large as the largest in the rows near the middle of the Stone. The south edge (A B) has slipped a little down from its original height, the boulder being frost-split horizontally; its height there above ground is 8 feet. The northern and narrower end is about 2 feet above ground, and does not touch the ground, as it rests upon its lower portion, beyond which it projects a few inches. The cup-marks run due north.”
Fred Coles 1903 drawing
If the Witches Stone was in fact a natural outcrop stone and not a cromlech, this very last point telling that “the cup-marks run due north” probably had much greater importance than a mere compass-bearing to the people who etched this carving. For in pre-christian religious structures across the northern hemisphere, north is commonly representative of death and the land of the gods. In magickal rites “it is the place of greatest symbolic darkness,” as neither sun nor moon ever rise or set there. Additionally, north is the place where, in shamanic traditions, the heavens are tied to the Earth: the cosmic axis itself that links heaven, Earth and underworld revolve around the northern axis in the skies. In early neolithic traditions this mythic structure was endemic. Whether its magickal relevance was intended here, at this stone, we will probably never know…
Folklore
Folklore tells that the Witches Stone was one of the sites used in magickal rites by the Scottish occultist, Michael Scot. J.R. Allen’s (1882) description of “the sloping face of the stone has been much polished by the practice of people climbing on to the top and sliding down,” may relate to folk memory of fertility rites once practised here, as found at similarly carved rocks in the UK and across the world.
McLean, Adam, The Standing Stones of the Lothians, Megalithic Research Publications: Edinburgh no date (c.1978).
Morris, Ronald W.B., The Prehistoric Rock Art of Southern Scotland, BAR: Oxford 1981.
Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in the Counties of Midlothian and West Lothian, HMSO: Edinburgh 1929.
Simpson, James, Archaic Sculpturings of Cups, Circles, etc., Upon Stones and Rocks in Scotland, England and other Countries, Edmonston & Douglas: Edinburgh 1867.
The stone marking the position of the well is situated on the north side of the road at the east end of Grange Loan, a few yards west of the junction with Findhorn Place, at Newington on the south side of Edinburgh. Unfortunately, all that now remains of the well is a red sandstone front with two pieces of metal on each side.
Archaeology & History
Set back a little into the wall alongside the road, we today see only the architectural memory of this once famous and much-reputed holy well, whose waters sadly no longer flow. Curiously omitted from the primary Scottish surveys on holy wells, it was long known as an important water source by the people of Edinburgh in ages past. The best article on the site was written by W.F. Gray (1962) some fifty years ago, in which he told:
“Built against a garden wall, the Penny Well looks rather forlorn. Now that a plentiful supply of water is in every dwelling, its public usefulness is definitely at an end, though it may slake the thirst of a passer-by. But however that may be, the Penny Well has a long if not distinguished history, though fact and fiction, it is to be feared, are inextricably linked.
“And first, as to its age. There is documentary evidence of the existence of the Penny Well as far back as 1716. In that year Sir William Johnston of Westerhall, Dumfriesshire, disposed to William Dick of Grange three acres of his lands of Sciennes, which are described as bounded on the west by the lands belonging to “said William Dick and the Penny Well.” The well really marked the south-east boundary of the lands of Grange.
“The actual age of the Penny Well is unknown. All that can be positively stated is that it has existed for at least two hundred years… How the Penny Well came by its name is another unsolved mystery. There is a story to the effect that in the earlier half of the nineteenth century an old woman who lived in the cottage opposite the well had charge of the spring and sold the water to wayfarers at a penny a glass. A very plausible story by which to account for the name! Unfortunately its credibility is shaken by the fact that…the spring was known as the Penny Well fully a century before…
“Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, when he took up residence at Grange House in 1832, was deeply interested in the well at the east end of his property. He had it restored and above it placed a tablet with the words, ‘Penny Well’ inscribed on it.
“About 1870, when feuing operations were in progress and there was much digging in the vicinity of the well, the water suddenly ceased to flow. After an interval, however, it again became copious, so much so that it formed a tiny pond in front of an adjoining house. In the hope of drawing off the water, a pit was dug. This led to an interesting discovery. Five feet below the surface, workmen came upon what there seems no reason for doubting was the original trough of the Penny Well. This “interesting and unexpected find” (to quote from The Scotsman) was covered by a large block of hard sandstone. The trough, which was circular, measured 32 inches across and had a depth of fully 1o inches in the centre.
“The Society of Antiquaries made investigations and the opinion was hazarded that “the basin into which the water ran was without doubt a baptismal font,” possibly the one which once stood beside St. Roque’s Chapel, situated at the southwest end of Grange Loan, but long since removed.
“In the (1890s) the Penny Well underwent a second restoration, the Town Council providing £30 for the purpose. By this time however, the spring was found to be impure, but the trouble was got over by substituting the town water.”
Folklore
Penny Well in 1959
Although there are no documents proving with certainty, local tradition reputed this to be one of Edinburgh’s numerous holy wells. It probably was. And whilst W. Forbes Gray seemed at a loss to explain the name of this old water source, it probably comes from the old practice of local people dropping pennies and other offerings into the well in the hope that the spirit of the waters would confer good health or other benefits upon the hopeful pilgrim. Such rites, of course, are very ancient indeed and relate specifically to the animistic spirit-nature of the site. In Mr Gray ‘s (1962) essay on the Penny Well he also had this to say:
“According to one statement, it was a holy well attached to the Convent of St. Catherine of Sienna (which stood at the foot of St. Catherine’s Place), a well whose waters were possessed of miraculous powers of healing those afflicted with blindness, in which case it would be in the same category as the well of St. Triduana at Restalrig, and the Balm Well at Liberton.”
Reputed in times gone by to be one of the never-failing springs, this clear and sparkling water supply would keep bubbling away long after all others in the area had dried-up during summer droughts.
“It is also said that the ubiquitous Mary Queen of Scots, when she visited the religious sisterhood at Sciennes, partook of the waters of the Penny Well. “
Cup-and-Ring Stone: OS Grid Reference – NT 251 696
Archaeology & History
Braid Hills carving
This is a fine-looking old cup-and-ring stone! Although no longer in situ (one of those really important golf courses needed to be built, so it had to go!), the 3 or 4 cup-and-rings seen here, carved at the end of what look like some sort of ‘stalks’, emerging from a distinctive radial under-curve, gave me a somewhat anthropomorphic impression of chaps in a boat — perhaps sailing into the Firth o’ Forth a short distance away! The Scottish Royal Commission (1929) report said the following of the stone:
“In 1897 a boulder of white sandstone with cup-and-ring markings on its surface was discovered on the Braid Hills golf course, and it was later presented to the National Museum of Antiquities. The stone measures almost 3 feet by 1 foot 9 inches, by 1 foot thick and is roughly oblong. The markings comprise seven cups in all, and at least three of these are completely surrounded by a ring and cut by a radial channel.”
Although nothing was said in the RCAHMS account, the stone gives one the impression it was associated with a tomb. And I know it aint the same, but when I first saw this carving, it reminded me of the Ri Cruin carving in Kilmartin, Argyll. It’s the potential “boat” feature that did it for me!
References:
Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in the Counties of Midlothianand West Lothian, HMSO: Edinburgh 1929.
Cup-and-Ring Stone (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NT 138 746
Archaeology & History
Lost carving of Carlowrie
Two-thirds of a mile west of the Cat Stane, on land immediately north of the River Almond by Edinburgh Airport in an area that was reported in 1780 to be “filled with the skeletons of human bodies,” this old petroglyph could once be found. The Scottish Royal Commission (1929) described it as being a covering stone for a short prehistoric tomb near the OS-grid reference cited here, “but when discovered it was much broken by the plough that it does not appear to have been preserved.” They refer instead to the last report of the site in the Scottish Society of Antiquaries journal, where we were informed that the cover stone was,
“marked with three series at least of concentric circles… The widest diameters of the sets of rings cut on the inside of the lid is about five inches, and each set is composed of five concentric circles.”
All trace of this carving appears to have been lost. Other carvings reported nearby in the 19th century also appear to have been lost or destroyed.
References:
Morris, Ronald W.B., The Prehistoric Rock Art of Southern Scotland, BAR 86: Oxford 1981.
Royal Commission on Ancient & Historical Monuments, Scotland, Midlothian and Westlothian, HMSO: Edinburgh 1929.
Simpson, J.Y., The Cat-Stane, Edinburghshire, Neill & Co: Edinburgh 1862.
Simpson, J.Y., “On Ancient Sculpturings of Cups and Concentric Rings,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 6, 1864-66.
