Healing Well: OS Grid Reference – NG 66091 19694
Also Known as:
- Chalybeate Well
Archaeology & History
Highlighted on the earliest Ordnance Survey maps of the island, roughly halfway along the Broadford to Heaste road on the right (west) side you will come across the Tabar Ruadh (Gaelic for “Red Well”). For many generations at this point was a Chalybeate well where villagers would stop and drink in a pewter mug from outlet of cast iron pipe which connected to the stone well some nine feet from the road. It was a major stopping point for their horses and ponies to take a drink too.
This set up was functioning in the early 1980’s. At that time I talked to Heaste locals who remembered fishermen from their village taking bottles of this water to pregnant women in the village of Elgol. It was known then for it’s healing properties; this was the early 20th century. The pewter mug was stolen and with road widening and the pipe removed, the site was becoming increasingly overgrown and in danger of being lost for ever.
For the last fifteen years I have been walking this road and had made it a determination to find this well. Success this summer! — and the hidden overgrown well was cleaned out a new steel pipe added. Chalybeate water now flows and a wooden box is at the roadside with a tin mug. On a wet roadside ditch this red water is very obvious where it joins the road.
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.
© John Gilbertson, The Northern Antiquarian
