english heritage

Swithins Well, Rothwell, West Yorkshire

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Healing Well (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – SE 3442 2686

Also Known as:

St. Swithin’s Well

Archaeology & History

Swithins Well on 1854 map

Highlighted in the fields on the south-side of Rothwell village on the 1854 OS-map, Swithin’s Well was, according to historian Andrea Smith (1982), previously known as a holy well, dedicated to the obscure Saxon saint of the same name. Although no ‘well’ relating to St Swithin comes from any early texts, the field and farmhouse of ‘Swithins’ were cited in records from the Cartulary of Nostell Priory in 1270 CE; then subsequently in a variety of records throughout the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. According to Miss Smith (1982),

“The first recording of St Swithin’s Well, Rothwell…was on an estate map of 1792 (‘Plan of St. Clement’s lands in the parish of Rothwell in the County of York, two-third part of the tithes of corn and grain of which belong to the King in right of His Ducky of Lancaster’, PB), and the field-names arising from it—Swithin’s, Swithin’s Barn, Swithin’s Lane Close—serve to give an indication of the well’s past importance as a local landmark.”

When she visited the site around 1980, she reported finding,

“several wet patches running in a line westwards downhill, but the farmer’s wife seemed certain that this was a broken drain and nothing else could be seen in that field or neighbouring ones, which could have been the well.”

Very recently, the Wakefield pagan and antiquarian Steve Jones went to see if the well or any remains of it could still be seen and told us:

“We went looking for the well down a footpath but it was obviously filled in when a colliery was nearby in the early 20th century and (there is) no trace of any spring now.”

Another one’s bitten the dust, as they say…..

But we must note that the grand place-name authority, A.H. Smith (1962) found no references to St. Swithin here and instead suggested the name derived from the old Norse word, sviðinn, ‘land cleared by burning’, which is echoed in the old local dialect word swithen, ‘moorland cleared by burning’ (Smith 1956), and similarly echoed in Joseph Wright’s (1905) magnum opus, where—along with meaning ‘crooked, warped’—it means “to burn, superficially, as heather, wool, etc.” There is also a complete lack of any mention to the saintly aspects of this place in John Batty’s (1877) primary history book on Rothwell parish, and yet he cites numerous other springs and wells in the region that have fallen out of history.

References:

Batty, John, The History of Rothwell, privately printed: Rothwell 1877.
Jones, Steve, Personal communication, Facebook 27.08.2018.
Rattue, James, “The Wells of St Swithun,” in Source, Summer 1995.
Smith, Andrea, “Holy Wells Around Leeds, Bradford & Pontefract,” in Wakefield Historical Journal 9, 1982.
Smith, A.H., The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire – volume 2, Cambridge University Press 1961.
Smith, A.H., English Place-Name Elements – volume 2, Cambridge University Press 1956.
Wright, Joseph, English Dialect Dictionary – volume 5, Henry Frowde: Oxford 1905.

Acknowledgements: Many thanks to Steve Jones of Wakefield for his informing us about the status of this site.

St. Botolph’s Well, Hadstock, Essex

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Holy Well: OS Grid Reference — TL 559 448

Getting Here

Hadstock lies along the A1052 north of Saffron Walden. Once in the village, a fenced pond will be apparent on the left below the church. Just above the pond is the well that feeds it – yet there seems some confusion regarding the exact location of the site.

Archaeology & History

John Wilson in his Imperial Gazetteer, III (1872) describes it as:

“A well set round with stones, and called St. Botolph’s Well, is in the churchyard.”

However, by the time of An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Essex, I (1916) it was:

“In the churchyard—a well, known as St. Botolph’s well, now covered.”

St Botolph’s Well

Indeed there would be some confusion regarding the exact location of this well. The church guide describes a pump to the west end of the churchyard as the well (but the only pump apparent was that across the road), however I was informed that this well was the one picturesquely situated by the road beneath the church. This is a brick-lined square well whose spring percolates into a pool covered in duckweed. No evidence of any material earlier than Victorian is apparent, suggesting it may date from when the pump was established. A wooden fence has been erected around it to prevent people falling in, but apparently the well itself has been covered.

Folklore

The village has a St. Botolph’s Well although there is no direct link recorded between it and the saint of that name, but local tradition believes that he was interred in this church. This view was supported by the discovery of an empty Saxon grave in the east wall of the South Transept. Greater credence being lent by the fact that this had previously been exhumed, which is in accordance with the knowledge that the relics were removed in 970, and then distributed around East Anglia.

Its waters have had a mixed reputation. Tradition records their ability to cure scrofula. Until recently the well was the important source of drinking water for the village. One tradition suggests that if a ring was dropped into it by a lovelorn girl she would find her true love. This tradition was supported by the finding of two rings recently in the cleaning of the well. Wilson (1970) notes a strange activity was practiced within living memory by the white witch: to keep the water pure, dead cats were placed down the well. Obviously, this was not continued for on one occasion the water was the harbinger of a typhoid outbreak, and forty percent of the population—or 40 people—died (although there is no evidence for either). The contamination was the result of the Rev F. E. Smith using the spring as an outlet for his lavatory. If this was not bad enough, one of his staff was a typhoid carrier! This is also notwithstanding, that it was commonly believed that the spring water drains from the graveyard above it: and hence it has earned the name ‘bone gravy’. Despite all these traditions, this did not deter the locals, who vouched for its goodness. Even when piped water was brought to the village in the 1930s, many locals could not see the point as the well water was good enough.

References:

Parish, R.B., Holy Wells and Healing Springs of Essex, Pixy Led Publications 2008.
Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Essex – volume 1, HMSO: London 1916.
Wilson, John M., The Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales – volume 3, A. Fullarton: Edinburgh 1872.

Extracted from the R.B. Parish Holy Wells and healing springs of Essex (2008)

Links:

Holy & Healing Wells

Old Red Well, Knapwell, Huntingdonshire

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Healing Well: OS Grid Reference – TL 3381 6300

Also Known as:

Red Well

Getting Here

If you wish to find it park the car at the church and follow the footpath beside the church and after crossing the stream and style turn right and continue along the woods passing the information centre (where a wooden box holds maps) and then after a few feet one reaches a small clearing and a path leads to the right into the woods. Take this and this will lead to the well.

Archaeology & History

The origin of the name ‘Knapwell’ is unclear: Cnapa may be the name of the first settler, or simply ‘boy’ ‘moneylender’ or even ‘mound’ referring to the earthworks to the end of the present village. The site is doubtless ancient and probably pre-Christian origin. Interestingly, one wonders whether the boy meaning is the correct one considering another Cambridgeshire site, the Barnwell on the outskirts of Cambridge has the same suggested origin. It may suggest that the local tribes here perhaps washed their infants in its water in a ritual fashion. There is some evidence of wells associated with ritual washing in other locales so it is possible. Knapwell is first mentioned in a will by A.D. 1000, and the settlement is noted in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Chenewelle, being held by Abbot of St Benedict of Ramsey. However, this was the estate not the well so nothing should be implied from Ramsey Abbey’s ownership.

The spring produces copious but sluggish red water and is protected by a red brick domed or arched well house similar to those of Holywell and Longstanton. When I visited the well is in fear of collapsing, and had deteriorated over a number of years, but recent pictures suggest it is in better condition.

Folklore

The well was the sole source of freshwater for both Boxgrove and Knapwell parishes and footpaths still lead from both communities to the well. Knapwell was also known as Little Wellesworth indicating the importance of this and The Victoria County History notes for Knapwell:

‘..named from the chalybeate Red Well, supposedly medicinal, in Boxworth Wood just east of the village.’

Like many Chalybeate springs, healing traditions are attached to it but curiously no details are recorded.

The water was well thought of well into the 20^th century, for the Parish guidebook, KNAPWELL VILLAGE And The Parish Church of All Saints (1978) notes:

“Within living memory a drinking cup used to hang on the small brick arch over the spot where the spring rises.”

Re-posted from the following blog

http://insearchofholywellsandhealingsprings.wordpress.com/2014/08/19/one-for-the-children-or-the-moneylenders-the-old-red-well-of-knapwell/

Forthcoming from Holy Wells and healing springs of Huntingdonshire

Jim Craven’s Well, Thornton, West Yorkshire

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Sacred Well: OS Grid Reference — SE 0967 3251?

Archaeology & History

Another well with considerable supernatural renown was this little-known site near the old village of Thornton, on the western outskirts of Bradford. We’re not 100% sure about its exact location, but the grid-reference cited here is of an old ‘Well’ that was highlighted on the first Ordnance Survey map of the region, at the end of solitary path which led to it and nowhere else. Our only documentary information comes from Elizabeth’s Southwart’s (1932) fine old book on the folk life of the old village, as it once was. At a place once known as Bent Ing Bottom, just south of the old village, is where it used to be known. The name of this Well is also curious, as no historian has yet worked out who the ‘Jim Craven’ was, nor what his relationship to the site might have been. It’s the folklore of it, however, which brings it the attention it deserves.

Folklore

In Elizabeth Southwart’s (1923) work, she told us that the place once known as “Bent Ing Bottoms have lost their romance.” She continued:

“Whether the golfers have driven it away—for the fields now form part of the Thornton Golf Links—or whether the advance of modernity in other forms is to blame, it is difficult to say. Once they were the haunts of “Peggy-Wi-T’-Lantern” and the Bloody-tongue. Peggy, a dame in a white mob cap, kilted skirt and white stockings, walked about with a lantern, enticing the unwary traveller to his doom. She was given to wandering, for, they say, Jim Craven Well, half a mile away, was a place to be avoided after nightfall.

“The Bloody-tongue was a great dog, with staring red eyes, a tail as big as the branch of a tree, and a lolling tongue that dripped blood. When he drank from the beck (known as the Pinch Beck, PB) the water ran red right past the bridge, and away down—down—nearly to Bradford town. As soon as it was quite dark he would lope up the narrow flagged causeway to the cottage at the top of Bent Ing on the north side, give one deep bark, then the woman who lived there would come out and feed him. What he ate we never knew, but I can bear testimony to the delicious taste of the toffee she made.

“When the dark was coming we used to sit on the filled-in pit, which makes a hump in the middle of the field, and wait for him. The sun would sink redly, through the arches of the viaduct, the trees that lined the beck would grow an ever darker green until they became black, the beck would begin to gurgle and gulp in a queer way; and down in the hollow we would hear a whimper, a whine, a moan, a snarl. Then, with scalps and spines playing queer tricks, we would wait and wait. But none of our little band ever saw him, except one girl, and she saw him every time.

“One Saturday a girl who lived at Headley came to a birthday party in the village, and was persuaded to stay to the end by her friends, who promised to see her ‘a-gaiterds’ if she would. As soon as the party was over the brave little group started out. But when they reached the end of the passage which leads to the fields, and gazed into the black well, at the bottom of which lurked the Bloody-tongue, one of them suggested that Mary should go alone, and they would wait there to see if anything happened to her.

“Mary was reluctant, but had no choice in the matter, for go home she must. They waited, according to promise, listening to her footsteps on the path, and occasionally shouting into the darkness:

““Are you all right, Mary?”

““Ay!” would come the response.

“And well was it for Mary that the Gytrash had business elsewhere that night, for her friends confess now that at the first sound of a scream they would have fled back to lights and home.

“We wonder sometimes if the Booody-tongue were not better than his reputation, for he lived there many years and there was never a single case known of man, woman or child who got a bite from his teeth, or a scratch from his claws. Now he is gone, nobody knows whither, though there have been rumours that he has been seen wandering disconsolately along Egypt Road, whimpering quietly to himself, creeping into the shadows when a human being approached, and, when a lantern was flashed on him, giving one sad, reproachful glance from his red eyes before he vanished from sight.”

Southwart later tells us that the ghostly dog travelled into the north and vanished. From the description she gives of the children walking their friend to “the end of the passage which leads to the fields, and gazed into the black well, at the bottom of which lurked the Bloody-tongue,” I can only surmise that the solitary well shown on the very first OS-map of Thornton at the coordinate given above is the place in question.

The ‘Bloody Tongue’ is first mentioned in Yorkshire folklore, I think, by Roger Storrs, in his article on holy wells in 1888, where he tells it to be one of the mysterious beings that live, usually at the bottom of the waters and almost universally used “to deter children from playing in dangerous proximity to a well.”

From the description of the waters turning red when the ghostly dog drank from it, we have a mythic account of when the waters occasionally turned red from the iron-bearing waters (chalybeate) which, obviously, wasn’t like this at all times. Whether this was a sporadic, unpredictable flow of iron in the waters, or a cyclical pattern of the water-flows, we are not told (which would imply, moreso, that it was sporadic). The folklore about this ghost and its appearance with another elemental creature along an old straight track running north from Upper Headley Hall to Thornton is intriguing—as in many old pre-christian traditions, North is the airt, or direction, representing Death; and black dogs are traditionally guardians of underworld treasures in the land of the Dead. With the plethora of other animistic folktales once known in this district (boggarts or goblins were known in nearby woods, wells and farms) it is likely that the origin of such folklore dates way back into antiquity.

References:

Bennett, Paul, Ancient and Holy Wells of West Yorkshire, forthcoming
Southwart, Elizabeth, Bronte Moors and Villages: From Thornton to Haworth, John Lane Bodley Head: London 1923.
Storrs, Roger, ‘Legends and Traditions of Wells,’ in Yorkshire Folk-lore Journal – volume 1 (ed. J. Horsfall Turner) 1888.

Holy Well, Bingfield, Northumberland

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Holy Well (destroyed): OS Grid reference – NZ 01 74

Archaeology & History

We add this site in the hope that a local historian may be able to rediscover its whereabouts. Long since lost, the last account of it was mentioned in notes by the prodigious northern antiquarian John Crawford (1899) in his vast work on Northumbrian history. Its whereabouts is vague as its final writings were scribed in The Black Book of Hexham in 1479 CE, where it was told that “the Haliwell flat (was) lying between the vill of Bingfield and Todridge.” Mr Crawford told us it was somewhere in this area:

“The south-west extension of Grundstone Law is a tract of poor pasture land called Duns Moor; and rising opposite to it on the north-east is the Moot Law, in Stamfordham parish, the valley between being watered by an affluent of the Erring burn.”

The Well was included in Binnall & Dodds’ (1942) fine survey, with no additional notes. To my knowledge, no more is known of the site.

References:

Binnall & Doods, “Holy Wells in Northumberland and Durham – Part 2,” in Proceedings Society of Antiquaries, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, July 1942.
Hodgson, John Crawford, The History of Northumberland – volume 4, Andrew Reid: Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1899.

Brandy Well, Carlton, North Yorkshire

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Holy Well (lost): OS Grid Reference – NZ 52 03?

Archaeology & History

Brandy Well c.1910

Not marked on any map of the area (that I can find), this little-known possible holy well is described just once in one of Mr Blakeborough’s (1912) numerous regional history tomes. Although he doesn’t explore the origin of the well’s name (which we find repeated at other water sources in northern Britain), the Scottish writers, Ruth & Frank Morris (1982) tell how examples of wells with this name in Scotland owe their names to the curious early christian figure of St. Brendan, whose annual saint’s day is May 16. Whether this applies here I cannot tell.

We need some help locating the place, as it seems to have fallen off the radar. The best I can do is give Mr Blakeborough description, who wrote of this Brandy Well:

“Speaking of superstitions reminds me of a tradition that the water in Brandy Well, half way up Carlton Bank, has most wonderful curative properties, and that a wish made here when drinking, is pretty certain to be fulfilled. The well is by the road side and the water is no doubt just about as pure as it could possibly be, coming as it does, after much filtering through peat, straight from the hills. There may be something more than mere superstition in the health giving properties of this water, especially in conjunction with the climb up the hill amid pine trees and the inhaling of the invigorating air.”

Its exact location is difficult to pin down. There is no sign of any Well along the roadside between Carlton village and where the road eventually levels out on the northwest side of the hill. It certainly isn’t the Mere Beck Spring on the south-side of the hill (is that still there and what is its history?); but there is however a ‘Spring’ shown on the early OS-maps on the east-side of the hill, along an old track at roughly NZ 52233 02357. Could this be it? Or has the old Brandy Well been destroyed? In an area littered with prehistoric and mythic sites, it would be good to relocate this one.

References:

Blakeborough, J. Fairfax, Life in a Yorkshire Village, Yorkshire Publishing: Stockton-on-Tees 1912.
Morris, Ruth & Frank, Scottish Healing Wells, Alethea: Sandy 1982.

Market Cross, Halesowen, Worcestershire

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Cross: OS Grid Reference – SO 9666 8356

Archaeology & History

Halesowen Cross, when it stood in the village

The history of this probable late-medieval monument is fragmentary. It presently stands in the southeast corner of St John the Baptist churchyard, but used to be in the middle of the old village (when the town actually was a village!). First erected in 1540 CE, the Victoria County History survey suggested that it may have marked an old boundary. David Eades (1999) gives the most decent account of the monument, which stands more than nine-feet high and has been re-positioned onto stone steps. He told:

“It marked the town’s market and fair and may once have come originally from Halesowen Abbey. It was once possibly more ornate, but religious symbols may have been removed during the Reformation. After a gale on 22 February, 1908, during which the cross blew down, it was dumped on a rubbish tip. A local solicitor and clerk to the justices, Mr Alfred Homfrey, rescued it, and Mr Job Garratt, the owner of New Hawne Colliery, paid for its recovery and resurrection in the churchyard.”

References:

Eades, David L., Halesowen, Sutton: London 1999.
Frederick W. Hackwood, Oldbury and Round About in the Worcestershire Corner of the Black Country, Cornish Brothers 1915.

Gough’s Barrow, Long Compton, Warwickshire

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Tumulus (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – SP 2946 3090

Archaeology & History

In days of olde there were heathen sites around the edges of the beautiful Rollright Stones complex that have sadly fallen prey to the intensive agriculture of more modern ‘civilized’ times. It’s become the way of things….. One site of importance in this geomythic pantheon was the ‘Gough’s Barrow’—so named after a drawing was done of the site by Richard Gough, editor of the 1789 edition of Camden’s Britannia. As far as I’m aware, it is the only one ever done of this monument. The Oxford archaeologist George Lambrick (1988) saw “every reason to accept the position and details of the barrow”, upon which stood at least two large stones—one of which gained the description of a ‘druidical pillar.’

Stukeley’s 1743 drawing

The same barrow may have been recorded in one of drawings of the great William Stukeley, who visited the Rollright Stones in 1710 and then again in 1723. On the left-side of the adjacent drawing you can see a denuded mound close to the edge of the picture, similar in shape and form to that drawn by Richard Gough. It is probably the same tumulus or barrow. Trial excavations at the site in 1983 looked for any remains of the old tomb, but nothing significant was uncovered. Lambrick estimated that the site probably measured “about 18m wide and 20m long east-west,” and “was a megalithic barrow and was therefore probably Neolithic in origin.”

References:

Bennett, Paul & Chanter, James, The Complete Rollright Stones, forthcoming
Bennett, Paul & Wilson, Tom, The Old Stones of Rollright and District, Cockley Press: Chipping Norton 1999.
Burl, Aubrey, Great Stone Circles, Yale University Press 1999.
Lambrick, George, The Rollright Stones, English Heritage 1988.
Peters, Frances, “An Antiquarian Visit to the Rollright Stones,” in Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, volume 94, 2001.
Stukeley, Willliam, Abury – A Temple to the British Druids, London 1743.

Lady’s Well, Blythborough, Suffolk

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Healing Well: OS Grid Reference – TM 450 762

Also Known as:

Wishing Well
Queen Ann’s Well
Lady’s Fountain

Getting Here

The site is found down Spring Lane at the south end of Henham Park. The current A145 meeting the A12.

Archaeology & History

A large structure is a brick and stone arch and which has two low seats inside, giving the alternative name of Tramp’s or Traveller’s Rest having also brass cups attached to the structure for anyone wishing to drink there. The age of the fabric has said to be mainly 1780, although one view was that it was erected by the first Countess of Stradbrooke in the 19th century and may be that recorded in 1833 in the poem ‘Lady’s Fountain’ poem by Agnes Strickland (the alternative name Lady coming from the Lady Strickland). Another view is that some of the fabric is 13th century in origin. The structure is now dry and overgrown, apparently last having water in the 1900s.

ladyswell1

Folklore

The spring is said to be near the reputed to be the place of King Onna’s death (654 AD). This was the battle of Bulcamp where Onna was chased by the Pagan Penda along Kings Lane, a lane which cuts through nearby parishes of Sotherton, Henham and Blyford to here were they stood their ground and he and his son Firminus were killed and buried. The well being erected where the king’s body fell. The legend clearly explains the site’s other alternative name of Queen Anne’s well…Anne being close enough to Onna to be semantically changed over time, and misrepresented as a Queen rather than a King!

References:

R.B. Parish, Holy wells and healing springs of Suffolk (in publication)

Links:

Holy & Healing Wells – A Suffolk Field Trip

Barrow Hill Stone, Chastleton, Oxfordshire

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Standing Stone (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – SP 257 282

Archaeology & History

We have found only one reference to this lost standing stone that could once be seen adjacent to the very well-preserved Chastleton Barrow Camp to the east of the village. In her scarce little work on the history of Chastleton House, Margaret Dickins (1900) told that,

“the oldest thing to be seen at Chastleton is the prehistoric stone, which till lately served as a field gate post on the Barrow Hill.”

This monolith was one in a series of megalithic sites in and around the village that have been destroyed due to the actions of ill-informed land-owners. In this case, the standing stone was in close association with the subsequent Iron Age encampment (this missing stone should not be confused with the nearby Goose Stones, greatly damaged).

References:

Bennett, P. & Chanter, James, The Complete Rollright Stones, forthcoming
Dickins, Margaret, Chastleton House, Walker: Stratford 1900.