Monthly Archives: January 2021
Possibly one of the most dangerous wells in Britain – St Anne’s Well at Siston
Why dangerous? St Anne’s Well lies along probably the busiest road of any holy well and thus is difficult to reach safely, and despite being along a road it is easy to miss often being full of litter.
The name St Anne’s Well appears on the 1830 OS map and the parish church is also dedicated to St Anne. It is worth noting that the cult of St. Ann was a later one, arriving in the 14th century. Perhaps E. Mardon’s 1857, ‘Rambles around Bristol’, in the Bristol Magazine and West of England Monthly Review 1 who also has the earliest written record has another origin for its name. For they describe it as:
“the once celebrated medicinal spring, of whose waters Queen Anne used to drink, visiting the village for that purpose.”
Was a then dedicated to Queen Anne and later this was misinterpreted as St Anne? Or vica versa. The reverse seems more likely as it seems odd that the Queen would have visited and the association of her name may be evidence of some attempt to de- Christianise and secularise the spring post-Reformation. Mardon (1857) also records:
“It would appear from the plaque affixed to the spring, that the villagers, in 1790, in grateful remembrance of past honours, named the waters ‘‘Saint Anne’s Well‘’, and the bridge a little further on ‘‘Saint Anne’s Bridge‘”
When R.C. Skyring Walters in 1928 in his The Ancient Wells, Springs and Holy Wells of Gloucestershire: Their Legends, History and Topography he noted that on his visit this plaque had been stolen. However, when I visited in the site in the early 1990s, there was a green sign denoting it, but upon my visit it too was lost in the hedge. He described it as:
“a stone trough at ground level, 4ft 6in by 2ft, which is divided in a curious manner into two unequal parts… There is a high stone wall behind the trough. Until about two years ago there was an iron plate, bearing the inscription “St Anne’s Well”… Water from the well… was well-known throughout the parish of Pucklechurch for its excellent properties as an eye lotion.”
Being divided into an unusual manner Skyring Walters believed that the smallest part for a puppy the larger for a mature dog?! Presently it contains very murky water and is perhaps in need of some restoration and protection. The last time it was restored properly may have been recorded by Dorothy Vintner in her 1966, ‘Holy wells near Bristol’, Gloucestershire Countryside June 1966, when they were told that:
“local inhabitants welcome the fact that its stonework is being restored and its water-supply improved.”
I cannot find my personal photographs at the moment so here is a link to one on megalithicportal.com
Its supply arises at the Lower Lias and Rhaetic limestone lying on Keyper Marl. A. Braine in their 1891 The History of Kingswood Forest calls it a chalybeate spring and states that:
“Here a large number of poor persons who have weak eyes resort to try its healing effects.”
This reference to healing eyes and it is recorded that people travelled for miles to try the cure, being still being publicised into the 1930’s. Interestingly Phil Quinn Quinn in the excellent 1999 The Holy Wells of Bath and Bristol Region, says that:
“women would come to the well with pins to drop in, in the hope of bearing a child.”
However after reviewing Vintner’s 1966 article that author refers to this tradition in Brittany not Siston! (sadly). Unfortunately, this belief has now slipped into other accounts of the well including the excellent website btsarnia.org//the-holy-wells-of-gloucestershire which records:
“In its heyday it drew people from Bristol especially the poor and those with weak eyes or those who were infertile. Pins were dropped into the well by women, hoping to become pregnant at the next intercourse. The efficacy of the waters as an eye cure was locally publicised as late as the 1930s. Similar wells with this custom and intention existed at Wrington, East Harptree and Portishead.”
Quinn (1999) is correct of course in his observation that it is:
“now sadly holds little more than rainwater.”
Stating that it was affected by road widening another impact on this noted holy well and slowly vegetation, litter and neglect may one day claim it.
An Enfield Field trip
Enfield might not seem the most profitable for holy and healing well hunting but there were some interesting sites. Sadly searching for the first site was less than fruitful. According to Samuel Lewis’s 1831 Topographical directory) there is a spring called King’s Ring, although Hope (1893) calls it Tim Ringer’s Well, he also notes that whose waters never freeze nor dry up. Lewis (1831) notes its location:
“To the south-west of the town, and about a mile from Old Bury, is a smaller moat, on the estate of John Clayton, Esq; and to the south of Goulsdown lane is another, separating two square fields, in the first of which are the remains of out-buildings belonging to a mansion in which Judge Jeffreys is said to have resided, and near the entrance a deep well called King’s Ring, the water of which is deemed efficacious in diseases of the eye: a celt was dug up in 1793, at the depth of twelve feet from the surface.”
G. M. Hodson and E. Ford 1873’s A History of Enfield note that it was on the south side of Nag’s Head Lane, near Ponder’s End. It was a deep well, probably the brick conduit noted in Ogilby’s roads 1698. Mr Leonard Will, local historian notes that Godfrey Maps reproduction of the Ordnance Survey map of Ponders End, 1896, shows King’s Ring (WELL) (Site of) on the south side of Southbury Road, just to the east of Churchbury Station (now called Southbury station).
The site does not appear to have survived as the area is heavily urbanised, it would appear to correspond to Poppy drive and despite some green spaces there nothing could be found!
More mysterious is the pond located in Trent Country Park called Camlet Moat, a name which first appears in 1440 A.D. The name has been thought to suggest that this was the site of the legendary castle of King Arthur Camelot. The site is also noted for a ghost of Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Sussex and Hertfordshire and Constable of the Tower of London whose ghost was apparently first recorded in the 12th century. He is said to guard a pot of treasure he hid down a nearby well before he was arrested for treason. Local legend also records has a paved bottom beneath which the treasure would be found which is protected by a magic spell. Curiously he is also associated with guarding treasure in ‘castle’ well in earthworks at South Mimms (cf Holy Wells and Healing Springs of Hertfordshire)
A steep crater in the north-east corner of the moat has been identified as the well. During excavation in the 1920s by the then owner, a on 6th April 1924, the Zanesville Times-Signal, an Ohio, USA based newspaper, ran a full page story with the headline ‘The Ghost that Guards the Treasure in the Well’ discussing the issues of disturbing the ghost of Geoffrey de Mandeville. According to A. Mitellas 2015’s A Concise History of Trent Country Park Version 3:
“The February 21st 1903 issue of Country Life tells of a story about the ‘last owner of The Chase’, who, having been accused of treason, hid in a hollow tree. Later that night, he sneaked out to make his escape but then fell down the well at the north-east corner of Camlet Moat and ‘perished miserably’. The ghost of this last owner is said to haunt the moat.”
Also associated with the site is Dick Turpin who would hide by the moat. He does not haunt the site but according to local Pagan and New Age groups, a female ghost called the ‘The White Lady or Goddess’ does. The groups who have taken to adopting the site as a significant religious. They have adorned the trees with votive offerings and make bowers from local branches in which they place shrines. As Mitellas (2015) notes:
“Camlet Moat is considered to be a sacred place by a Pagan and mystic network that stretches out far beyond the local vicinity, and, indeed, the country. Local Pagans who regularly visit the site occasionally build bender huts from the surrounding branches and brushwood, complete with shrines. In particular, the well is considered to be sacred. Followers have adorned a partially felled hornbeam tree that leans over the well with prayer rags, symbols and trinkets.”
C. Street’s 2009 London’s Camelot and the Secrets of the Grail believes that the site was a place of healing and inspiration being a site of an ancient oracular shrine. He also notes that it is one of the corners of ‘The Barnet Triangle’ with the east Barnet’s St Mary the Virgin and Monken Hadley’s St Mary the Virgin churches forming a perfect equilateral triangle. A triangle which is claimed to be a powerful conduit of energy feeding ley lines locally.
The name Camlet is thought by many to have been corrupted from Camelot and hence theories have developed regarding a link to the legendary King Arthur, indeed it has been called ‘London’s Camelot’. A reference from May 1439 does record the demolishing the ‘manor of Camelot’ supporting the idea. Another possible origin is that the 14th century stonemason William Ramsey who constructed Edward III’s round table for Windsor, lived here and named it Camelot out of homage.
Camlet moat attribution: Stu’s Images
In my Holy Wells and healing springs of Middlesex I believed to have located Noddin’s Well as a small boggy hole near the old Middlesex University buildings. However even more mysterious is that others appear to identify it as the ruins of what appear to be a folly building perhaps a bath house. Equally mysterious is the name local Pagan groups have attempted to associate the well with the Celtic God Noden’s who is associated with spring in his mythology. However, equally it could derive from a local land owner. No-one appears to know and it remains an enigmatic site.
Extracted in part from Holy Wells and healing springs of Middlesex
Mysterious creatures of wells and springs: The Lambton Worm
“The worm shot down the middle stream
Like a flash of living light,
And the waters kindled round his path
In rainbow colours bright.But when he saw the armed knight
He gathered all his pride,
And, coiled in many a radiant spire,
Rode buoyant o’er the tide.When he darted at length his dragon Strength
An earthquake shook the rock
And the fire-flakes bright fell round the knight
As unmoved he met the shock.Though his heart was stout it quailed, no doubt
His very life-blood ran cold
As round and round the wild worm wound
In many a grappling fold.”
So write a local Poet of perhaps the most famous British dragon legend. The story dates from the 14th century, where the heir to Lambton Hall instead of attending Mass would fish. One particularly Sunday he said to have secured a fine fish. Hope (1893) in his Legendary Lore of Holy Wells accounts:
“he exerted all his skill and strength to bring his prey to land. But what were his horror and dismay on finding that, instead of a fish, he had only caught a worm of most unsightly appearance! He hastily tore the thing from his hook, and flung it into a well close by, which is still known by the name of the Worm Well.”
A stranger is said to have remarked that he had never seen such a creature and said it was like an eft, only it had nine holes on each side of its mouth and that he had caught the Devil himself. However, the worm remained forgotten in its well until one day it emerged, having outgrown the well and moved to the river where it lay during the day around a rock and by night around a hill, causing it to become stepped as a result of its twining. The hill remains called Worm Hill.
Such a beast then terrorised the area, eating lambs, chasing cattle and suckling cows’ milk. When it reached Lambton Hall, where the household was terrified, the young son was no-where to be seen and so the steward rose to the occasion. He ordered that a trough should be filled with milk and every day the beast would drink the milk and cause no harm returning to their resting places. This happened every year for seven years until the son and heir returned. He was a wiser and more mature man and seeing his land’s desolate took to a local wise woman to ask what to do. She at first scolded him for his wasteful life and bring the beast to the parish, but realising that he was repentant, told him to wear a suit of thickly studded with spears. He stood on the rock in the river with his sword and he was warned that should he fail – nine generations of the manor would not die in their beds! A tireless fight ensued between the worm and the heir in which a number of blows did not stop the beast but finally as the beast wrapped around him he made a body blow severing the beast in two. These two sections were separated and floated down the river…never to be united.
Worm Hill, Washington By Peter GHughes at English Wikipedia, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8258962
Not far away, is Long Witton’s Thruston Wells which were guarded by dragon, a winged serpent who valiantly fought Guy, Earl of Warwick too, but each time he was wounded the creature would dip his tail into one of the wells and was healed. Soon Guy realised this and leapt before the well and speared it through the heart blocking the beast’s ability to reach the well.
There are many other such serpent and well stories. Why? From a biological background the description of the Lambton Worm is interesting…it sounds like a Lamprey, and perhaps as this was a Royal fish, so peasantry did not often see it. Mix this with discovery of fossils – often found exposed near water perhaps – and the imaginary of Pagan vs Christian and you have the Dragon.
holyandhealingwells 