Healing Well (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – SD 8136 2585
Archaeology & History
The name of this seemingly lost site—Chapel Lane Well—suggests it may have possessed that traditional ‘holy’ association, but neither custom nor history has bedecked us with information to give certainty to such an idea. Even the name of the road along which it was found was one ascribed only by local folk in the 19th Century, for the old maps show us it to have been Goodshaw Lane—but the locals in this neck o’ the woods preserved many an old way that fell foul of the boring Industrialist writers of that age. Except for one, thankfully!
J.M. Mather was a true ambling rambler like my self, wandering off-path, in all weathers, and dreaming by the chimes of swirling waters in stream and spring alike, moving betwixt the roars of biting gales in wintry heights and quietudes of moorland nights gazing at falling stars. And thankfully his pen left us with a smattering of old tales from the tongues of local folk not considered worthy by the Industrialists and christian historians of his time. Mather, instead, wrote of the actual history of Rossendale: of the ways of the people and moods of the hills…
The Chapel Lane Well was on the left-side of the road as you head up to Goodshaw Chapel, just where the track leads off up to Folly Bank Farm: “a quaint looking house”, even in his day! It was, he said, where “the legend of the Chapel Snake still survives.”
“Many years ago, when people came from the village beyond to draw from its waters, in the dusk of one evening an hysterical girl declared she saw a white snake in the liquid depths. The alarm soon spread, and for days none dared to approach, until the want of water and the toil entailed by having to wander further for it, led to a solemn conclave of villagers. Amongst those composing it was a doughty sexton, who, seeing the fears of his friends, declared that he would shoot the snake. Armed with his gun, he cautiously approached. Seeing what he supposed to be the snake, lying in serpentine form, white upon the waters, he fired ; but when a careful inspection was made, the object of delusion was found to be a knitted garter. This, in the depths of the well, and seen by an hysterical girl, had led to the panic, the heroism of a sexton, and the final amusement of the neighbourhood. The well is still there, and in use.”
But some time after Mather wrote those words, the waters were blocked and it has long since fallen into history. As if to compensate and still flowing, are waters not far from here that were known as the abode of the great and dreadful fairy creature known as Jenny Greenteeth!
References:
- Mather, J. Marshall, Rambles Round Rossendale – volume 2, J.J. Riley: Rawtenstall 1894.
© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian
