Tag: Gosforth

Villa Real, Jesmond, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Northumberland

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Cist (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NZ 260 656

Archaeology & History

Urn of Villa Real

All remains of this prehistoric burial site have obviously long since fallen into only the vaguest of memory, but its incidence deserves reviving for those who may live nearby and seek for a place where our truly ancient ancestors once faired.  Here, beneath the modern buildings of homo-profanus, less than a mile north-east of Newcastle city centre, a small prehistoric burial chamber, or cist, was uncovered quite accidentally by a Mr Russell Blackbird (1832) in the first-half of the 19th century.  In a letter to the newly-formed (as it was back then) Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle in April of that year he told,

“In trenching some ground for planting, this morning, we discovered a stone vault, 4 feet long by 2 feet wide, and 20 inches deep, deposited in a dry hard marl below the soil, which we were  taking out for making the walks in the garden. It contained the bones of a man, the head, in particular, quite perfect, with all the teeth in it.  Also a small urn (was found)… There was some red-coloured earth in the urn which the labourers threw out.”

Mr Blackbird sent the antiquarian society a sketch of the urn that he and his colleagues discovered, reproduced here.

References:

  1. Blackbird, Russell, “Account of the Discovery of a Stone Vault and Urn, at Villa Real, Jesmond,” in Archaeologia Aeliana, volume 2, 1832.

Acknowledgements:  Huge thanks for use of the Ordnance Survey map in this site profile, reproduced with the kind permission of the National Library of Scotland. 

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

St. Helen’s Well, Gosforth, Cumbria

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Holy Well (lost):  OS Grid Reference – NY 0562 0303

Archaeology & History

Described as being “lost” in John Musther’s (2015) relatively recent survey, very little has been written about this site but, by the look of things, it may still exist—albeit in a boggy state of affairs!  It was mentioned in Parker’s (1926) classic history book of the area:

“Near to Newton is a very plentiful spring which is known to have been moved further from the house than it was.  Adam de Newton, son of Richard, mentions in one of his grants, “St. Helen’s Well, which is at the corner of my garden, the outfall going into Grucokesgile beck.”

Possible site of the Well

Parker found it to have been described in a local property charter in St Bee’s Register (Wilson 1915) as far back as 1220 CE.  On the earliest OS-map of the area, a “Spring” is shown just above Newton, which may mark the very spot!  Not far from the holy well was also a cross-marked stone called the Grey Stone (grey stones are usually boundary stones, but can also be standing stones—of which there were a lot in this neck o’ the woods).

Folklore

St. Helen’s Day was celebrated on August 18, but there seem to be no accounts of traditional customs recorded here.

References:

  1. Harte, Jeremy, English Holy Wells – volume 2, Heart of Albion press: Wymeswold 2008.
  2. Musther, John, Springs of Living Waters, privately printed: Keswick 2015.
  3. Page, Jim Taylor, Cumbrian Holy Wells, North West Catholic History Society: Ormskirk 1990.
  4. Parker, C.A. The Gosforth District: Its Antiquities and Places of Interest, Thomas Wilson: Kendal 1926.
  5. Wilson, James, The Register of the Priory of St. Bees, Surtees Society: Durham & London 1915.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian