Holy Well (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – SW 7202 5073
Archaeology & History
Not to be confused with another St. Agnes’ Well near the coast just 1½ miles southwest of here, this ‘holy well’ was found in the middle of the town itself. It was first described sometime between 1710 and 1720 by a certain Thomas Tonkin who penned lengthy notes about the history of the parish of St Agnes and, therein, mentioned this Well which was, he said, located “by the Cross before the Church.” But it had already been drained and “cut off”, as he put it, some years prior to him writing his notes.
More than two hundred years later, on 3 December 1931, the West Briton & Cornwall Advertiser reported on an excavation that took place of the nave of St Agnes church. The vicar, a Rev W.H. Browne, said that,
“On the west side there was evidence of water, which might have been a spring and possibly the holy well. We shall have to preserve it if it turns out to be what we anticipate it is. How this is to be done, I do not know, but we cannot allow it to be covered in again without doing something. It is creating tremendous interest, and will cause a great fight among the experts.”
Several years later, the great Cornish hagiographer Gilbert Dobie (1940) also mentioned the excavation, noting the wet area which they believed was the location of the well, also noting, “at the same time…the finding of remains of an earlier chapel.”
References:
- Doble, Gilbert H., History of St Piran, 1940.
- Tonkin, Thomas, “The Parish of St Agnes,” in Journal royal Institute Cornwall (eds. P.A.S. Pool & H.S Douch), volume 7 (2nd series), 1975.
© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian