Tag: whooping cough

Whooping Cough Well, Strathtay, Perthshire

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Healing Well:  OS Grid Reference – NN 915 543

Also Known as:

  1. Sput na-fruith-chasd

Getting Here

Locale of the Whooping Cough Well

Park up at the red phone-box in Strathtay village (by the road junction) and walk east  along the road (slightly downhill) for less than 50 yards, then turn left and walk up the track.  70-80 yards up, keep your eyes peeled for the distinct footpath on your right (don’t head up to the house) that runs into the trees and keep walking uphill for literally ½-mile where you’ll reach the gorgeous overgrown scented orchard of Tullypowrie farmhouse on the left. Keep walking along the path past the farm and, if you fancy, cross the burn (stream) anywhere hereby.  The well is on the other side of the burn, somewhere…..

Archaeology & History

We ventured up here recently to look at several sites, but when we came to find this long lost well we were hindered severely by the mass of vegetation that was teeming with ticks—so thought it most sensible to come back here again at the end of winter when we’d have a clean slate of landscape to look at. (the ticks have got fucking awful in this neck o’ the woods in recent years!)  It has almost fallen out of history, with no one writing about the place for more than a hundred years, yet it was a place of considerable importance in the folk traditions of Strathtay.

In some previously unpublished notes written by the historian Charles Robertson sometime at the beginning of the 20th century, he told of a lady from Pitlochry called Mrs Anderson who informed him of an important water source known locally as Sput na-fruith-chasd which,

“comes spouting out of a high rock on the east side of the Tullypowrie Burn opposite Tullypowrie farm, and was resorted to of old for the cure of whooping cough.  The sufferer who came here and drank of the water always got better too.”

It was described by the Logierait schoolmaster James Kennedy (1927) as one of “the three most important (wells) in the Tay Valley”—and there are a lot of wells in the Tay Valley!

There’s a slight discrepancy regarding the exact location of the well: whilst Mr Robertson’s notes told that it was found “opposite Tullypowrie farm”, in Hugh Mitchell’s (1923) survey of local antiquities he told that,

“On the oppsite side of the burn from the mill there is a drip well, the water from which was for long regarded as a certain cure for whooping cough”—

which would place the well a hundred yards or so further upstream. (the very low-lying walls of the mill can just be discerned a short distance above the farmhouse) I’m sure that a good search of the area after Winter has laid the vegetation to rest will tell us one way or the other precisely where this curative well is hiding.

Across the burn from the well is the barely visible ruins of an old church: Roman Catholic according to tradition, with a singular short carved cross standing on the low remains of its eastern wall.  Close to this, but now in the field a few hundred yards west, was the curious bullaun stone known as Clach na Buidseach, or Witchcraft Stone.  This bullaun would seem to have been used in rites related to the Whooping Cough Well, but the precise nature of these rites has been lost.

References:

  1. Dixon, John H., Pitlochry, Past and Present, L. Mackay: Pitlochry 1925.
  2. Kennedy, James, Folklore and Reminiscences of Strathtay and Grandtully, Munro Press: Perth 1927.
  3. Mitchell, Hugh, Pitlochry District: Its Topography, Archaeology and History, L. Mackay: Pitlochry 1923.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian 

Kinkhoast Well, Comrie, Perthshire

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Healing Well:  OS Grid Reference – NN 76180 23988

Also Known as:

  1. Kingcough Well
  2. Kinkhost Well
  3. Whooping Cough Well

Getting Here

The track to the Well

From Comrie village, take the long winding steep road up past the Devil’s Cauldron towards Glen Lednock.  After 1½ miles the road begins to level-out and you come out from the trees and about 400 yards along there’s a dirt-track on your left.  Park here!  OK, now walk further along the road (not the dirt-track) for less than 100 yards and take the footpath up the slope (if this is blocked—it shouldn’t be!—you can walk further along until your reach the next track on your left).  Go up this footpath for 200 yards till you reach the track by the large bend; and then walk up it for another 200 yards where there’s another large bend.  On your right, past the solitary big rock, you’ll see the sign…

Archaeology & History

Sign of the Kinkhoast Well

A little-known healing well that all but fell out of existence until, thankfully, some local folks recently decided to revive it.  A sign stands above the back of this spring of water as it emerges from the Earth telling you that it’s the Kinkhoast Well.  Its clear waters form into a very small pool, wherein are dozen of small white pebbles and and quartz pieces, very smooth and obviously worn by decades, if not centuries, of local folk giving the spirit of these waters—the genius loci—and offering in exchange for its healing virtues in the hope that it cures them of the whooping cough, of which this well is renowned.

It’s one of many whooping cough wells that are found in the Perthshire hills—and most are actually large boulders with hollows into which the rainwater collects and it is this that is used medicinally and not necessarily the spring water.  A curious thing indeed…. and I’ve come across Highland folk who were taken to them when they were young children who’ve told me that their whooping cough was subsequently cured!  Intriguingly, there is a large boulder just below this well, upon whose top is a natural bowl in which rainwater collects—and although I can find nothing specific telling of such a tradition here, above Comrie, it’s possible that the relationship between stones and wells, found at other places in the Highlands, also existed here.

Small pool full of white offering stones
Well & stone in close attendance

The name Kinkhoast itself (and variables thereof) is a Scottish dialect word, found from Galloway and into the Highlands.  Jamieson (1880) describes it as literally “hooping cough”, with a brief note on the disease being cured by water drank from a shell.  Meanwhile, in Grant & Morison’s (1960) massive work, they give numerous examples of the term, most of which relate to the same “whooping cough”, with some examples of folk remedies to abate the disease, including one of parents sending their children to take a drink from the “Kinker Steen Wall”—in that case from the parish of Logie.  Examples of the very same tradition are known at other kinkhost sites.  Check the place out when you’re in the area—and rest for a while to drink in the beautiful views…

References:

  1. Anonymous, “Comrie Folklore – Kingcough Well,” in Crieff & District Post, no.31, August 2012.
  2. Grant, William & Morison, David D. (eds), The Scottish National Dictionary – volume 5, SNDA: Edinburgh 1960.
  3. King, M.D., “Kingarth (Comrie Parish): Healing Well,” in Discovery & Excavation Scotland, 1992.
  4. Jamieson, John, An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language – volume 3, Alexander Gardner: Glasgow 1880.

Acknowledgements:  Big thanks to Paul Hornby for getting us here – and for use of his photo.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Whooping Cough Stone, Struan, Perthshire

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Legendary Rock: OS Grid Reference – NN 816 653

Getting Here

Old photo of the stone (after Duncan Fraser)

Up the A9 past Blair Atholl, a few miles later there’s the turning for Struan.  Scarcely a mile east of old Struan Church, head past the old farmhouse of Old Kindrochat and keep going eastwards along the edge of the trees for about 200 yards until you reach the sheepfold. There you’ll see a singular rock sitting alone by the fence. That’s it!

Archaeology & History

This little known healing stone was, at one time last century, of great repute in the Highlands. Today, very few people even know it exists. One of many rocks that were said to possess healing abilities, this one (obviously) was of great repute in the curing of whooping cough. But it wasn’t the rock alone that did the work here, for upon its edge was a small basin into which rainwater collected and this, when used correctly and in due accord with ancient ritual tradition, could enact the cure.  Mr Duncan Fraser said of this fascinating healing stone:

“The grey water-worn stone is about 4ft 6in long, 2ft 6in broad and 2ft high, with a deep gash on top, where the water lingers even in long dry spells. When full it holds about half-a-gallon. People were still coming here with their sick children as late as 1860 — and bringing a spoon made from the horn of a living cow. There was no cure without that.”

The ritual “spoon made from the horn of a living cow” was an important ingredient at another site with the reputation for curing whooping cough about 50 miles south of here, near Balquhidder. (see Whooping Cough Well, Killin)  What truly fascinates me is the origin of this stone and its medicinal virtues.  When  did the healing rites first start here – how long ago…?

References:

  1. Fraser, Duncan, Highland Perthshire, Standard Press: Montrose 1969.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian