Category Archives: Cornwall
St Cuby’s Well Duloe Cornwall
If I was to be asked ‘take me’ to a classic holy well, one which had that romantic and mysterious feel and remained in the 21st century still a place of solitude and contemplation, one site I would suggest is St Cuby’s Well at Duloe. Throw in the fact nearby is the presence of an ancient church and a unique quartz stone circle and the site certainly has its attractions to the antiquarian.
In Ancient and Holy Wells of Cornwall by Mabel Quiller-Couch (1894) tells us:
“In the parish of Duloe, on the road which leads from Sandplace to Duloe Church, at one time stood the consecrated well of St. Cuby… The well of St. Cuby was a spring of water on the left hand side of the above road, which flowed into a circular basin of granite, carved and ornamented round the edge with the figures of dolphins, and on the lower part with the figure of a griffin; it is in shape somewhat like a font, with a drain for the carrying off of the water.”
The well is first mentioned in land documents appearing as La Welle with the valley Kippiscomebe according to Lane-Davies being Cuby’s combe being originally Cub’s combe.
Why was St. Cuby?
St. Cybi (Cuby) founded a monastic settlement within ‘Caer Gybi,’ being born 480 AD at Callington near Plymouth. His father was a Cornish Chieftain and great grandson of Cystennin Gorneu, King Arthur’s grandfather. He was a well connected saint, his mother Gwen, was sister of Non, St. David’s mother. He decided not to follow in his family footsteps and being a chieftain and so became a Christian monk travelling to Gaul establishing religious centres with his disciples. He returned to Cornwall settled at Tregony living in a cell next to a well. Quiller-Couch (1894) notes:
“This saint, who has been called also Keby by some of his biographers, was the son of Solomon, a Christian king or chieftain of Cornwall. According to the Rev. S. Baring-Gould, Solomon was a son of Geraint, and his wife was a sister of St. Non. St.Cuby at an early age gave himself up to learning and religion ; he renounced all claim to his father’s kingdom, to which he undoubtedly had the right, in favour of his brother’s family, and settled at Tregony for a short time, after which he visited Ireland, and finally went to Anglesea, where he died.”
Traditions of the well
According to Helen Fox in her Cornish Saints and holy wells the well’s water cured TB, Scurvy and rheumatism although I am unsure where this piece of folklore is derived from. The most well-known piece is quoted by Quiller-Couch wo states that:
“The well at one time was very much respected, and treated with reverence by the neighbouring people, who believed that some dire misfortune would befall the person who should attempt to remove it. Tradition says that a ruthless fellow once went with a team of oxen for the purpose of removing the basin ; on reaching the spot one of the oxen fell down dead, which so alarmed the man that he desisted from the attempt.”
In Mrs Peel’s Our Cornish Home, it is said that the basin was broken when it was rolled down Kippiscombe by drinken workmen and it came to rest beside a cottage of an old lady who heard the Piskeys laughing over it all night.
Quiller-couch notes that:
“In spite of this tradition, however, the basin has been moved, probably when the new road was cut, and was taken to the bottom of the woods ‘on the Trenant estate ; it is now placed in Trenant Park.”
This story of the well is told in more details in In the Old Cornwall Journal of April 1928 the story is told that so strong was the superstition attached to the basin that when the squire (Wm Peel d 1871) wished to move it into Trenant Park for preservation about 1863 he had to pledge himself firmly to provide the pensions for the families of any who fell dead before the carters would took the stone. Of this font one now must travel to the church being returned in 1959 when it returned to the parish. It is a remarkable relic with a snake, griffin and dolphin on the bowl’s rim. It certainly looks pre-medieval.
Recently as it spreads across Cornwall (and beyond) the well have become a rag well or as it might be called locally clootie well.
The well today
The well is made of granite ashlar with a gabled end and roof constructed of large blocks of granite with a rounded head arched entrance with an ancient Celtic cross above the door. There are two cells the outer one has a stone seat but its a cramped location to wait. The inner well house is built into the bank and has a round-headed arch to the inner well house room which has corbelled walls and a flat stone roof. The well is thought to be 15th century but its present state owes to be restored by a former Rector The Rev. Dr, Barrington Ward around 1822 when the nearby road was built and remains a delightfully well preserved granite well chapel. Despite being close to a road it is a peaceful spot shrouded by bushes and resembles a grotto where within you can be devoid of the world outside as it is dark; very little light penetrates through! The water now seeps from the side and flows into the floor of the second chamber. It is clear and flowing although it had a dead mole in it! Despite this it is a remarkable place.
Professor Charles Thomas Holy Wells of Cambourne extracted from Christian antiquities of Cambourne H.E Warne Ltd 1967 pp120-6 by kind permission of the author Originally published in Source – The Holy wells journal New Series No 2 Winter 1994 Part Two
In my aim to restore the lost articles from the Source archive this is the second part of the Holy Wells of Cambourne article
8 Maudlin Well
Just north of Roseworthy is the tenement of Cornhill, and in the valley bottom, on the Camborne side of the Connor street where a large field meets the uncultivated moor by the river, there is a spring now enclosed in a modern concrete housing. On the 1840 Tithe Map, this appears as ‘Maudlin Well’(field no. 435) miscopied as ‘Moudlin Well’ on one version. Henderson noted a version Medlenswell; but does not state where he found this. It is hard to think of any Cornish word which could have given rise to this way by corruption, and looks like as if this well was formerly ascribed to Mary Magdalene, sister of Lazarus and Martha.
9 Sandcot Well
In the extreme north-west corner of the Parish, there is a small steam flowing on the southside f the B3301 road, opposite the small one-storey cottage called Sandcot (below Pencobben) down the Red River bridge, or Gwithian Bridge, which divides Camborne from Gwithian. The stream comes out from under a rock in an overgrown quarry, and issues with some force,
The writer is indebted to Mr W. J. Furze of Beach House, Gwithian, for the information that this was at one time thought to be a holy well. The physical situation is certainly not against this theory, and it is interesting to note that there is no holy well otherwise known to be connected with the nearby chapel of St. Gothian, patron of Gwithian. This may be St Gothian’s Holy well.
10.Fenton-Ia
The history and development of this site was fully discussed in Chapter V. It is worth stressing again that this may have been a medicinal well. Edward Lhuyd merely comments that ‘the well was call’d FentonIa in the psh of Cambron’ but fifty years later, Dr Borlase described it as a ‘well notated for Physical virtue’ and again as ‘…a rude well noted for its physical virtues.’ It is pity that we are not told what these virtues specifically were.
11 Fenton- Veryasek
The evidence for the existence of St. Meriasek’s holy well in Camborne, a shrine of some renown, rests not only in passages in Beunans Meriasek (a late mediaeval miracle play in Cornish detailing the life of St Meriasek/Meriagog -ed) but a wide range of independent accounts. The earliest is provaky that of Nicholas Risarrck writing in circa 1600 who says ‘there is a well wch also bereth that name and it is called St Marazaak’s Well’ Lloyd does not appear to have regarded the well as worth noting, but it appears in his notes as his chapel no 4 (at Rhoszwerb ie Rosewarne) and that some kind of structure was still visible about 1700 is confirmed by Tonkin
Thomas Tonkin of St Agnes in his unpublished Parochial History of Cornwall wrote between 1702 and 1730, the following passage concerning Camborne:
“I am inform;’d that there is a walled Consecrated well in the Parish called Mearhagos…and yearly the young People of the Parish frequent thai well, drink the water, and perhaps Cast some kind of offering in it, besprinkle themselves and then for the future are reckied true Parishioners and called Meerhagicks.”
Tonkin clearly shared an informant with William Hals who in the published portion of his county history, stated this
“CAMBURNE a Rectory, Is situate in the Hundred of Penwith etc. For its modern name Camburbe, which was not extant at the the of the Norman conquest, it signifies crooked or arched burne or well pit of water, so named from the famous consecrated spring of water and wall’d well in this parish call’d Cam-burne Well; to which Place Young People, and some of the Elder Sort,, make frequent Visits, in order to wash and besprinkle themselves with the Waters thereof…viz such as have been much sprinkled with Sprigs, Shrubs or Branches, viz, the shrubs, or Branches of Rosemary or Hyssop with which they are besprinkled. These are again by others also nick-name Mearagacks alias Meraragiks, that is to say Persons erring, straying, doing amiss, rash, fond, perverse, wilful, obstinate.”
This strange and much embroidered passage contains a good deal of hidden information. Tonkins Meerhagicks,, Hals Mearagacks and Lhuyd’s spelling of the Saint’s name as ‘Meradzock’ all confirm that by the 18th century, the last stage of Spoken Cornish, in intervocalic -s-in Meriasek’s name has become an English -J- sound, As Nance commented the colloquial pronunciation would now be ‘Mer -aj -ek’(probably with a strong penultimate stress). Hals gives at least two false etymologies ; that of the name Cambourne taking burne as a well or well-pit (OE burne stream, brook, fountain, well), an idea which was also expressed by Borlase; and an indigeneous attempt to translate Mer-rasick as a compound word instead of a proper name. As he appears to think it means ‘much sprinkled’ presumably be seen as VC mur, meor ‘great’ or meor ‘many much’ and an invented adjective ‘rasick’ possibly intended as a united form of crasyk (?crysek) from ModC crys, ‘a shaking, a shir’? Cf W crony vb to shiver and in Middle Ir creasach ‘ shivering. ‘Mearagacks alias Merargiks, on the other hand, he translates by a string of not wholly related adjectives, and it is hard to see what Cornish words, real or imagined, he had in mind here.
The special virtue of this well, as we know from Beunans Meriasek lay in the power of its water to cure insanity (lines 005-8 ‘likewise the water from my well/I pray that it may be a cure/For a man gone out of his mind/to bring him back to his wits again.). This reflects an original facet of Meriasek cult. At Stivalin Brittany an early mediaeval bell attributed to the saint is used to cure headaches and deafness, and at St Jean – du -Doigt, a mediaeval reliquary in the form of a bust of the saint contains what is alleged to be a piece of his skull. This head motif is thus central to some lost tradition it seems, in this respect to have been commissioned to both Cornwall and Britany. In Camborne, by a simple transference of ideas, those frequently Fenton-Veryasek would be jocularly regarded as in need of this specific cure, and the name ‘merajick’ must by Hals and Tonkin’s time have bee a local synonym for a hot-head or giddy fellow of any kind.
It is also seems clear from what Tonkin says that this well was in some way central to the life of Camborne; one suspects that the young people who frequented it ‘yearly’ did so in particular in early June, on the occasion of Meriasek’s feast-day.
Neither the well nor chapel are mentioned at all by Borlase, and all subsequent accounts derive either from Hall’s florid passage quoted above, or (more recently) from a minor elaboration of Hal’s remarks by Robert Hunt in his folk-lore collection. The chapel may have been in ruins as early as the 16th century, even if some kind of structure – as Thomas Tonkin suggests – even remained around the well itself until after 1700. In some form or other, the actual well was both known and identifiable until the last century, and gave its name to a house (St Maradox Villa) at the bottom of Tehidy road, Camborne.
The well was not, as tradition sometimes asserts, inside the present wall around the grounds of Rosewarne House. It stood on the opposite (west) side of what is now Tehidy Road, probably within the front garden or gardens of the late 19th century dwellings there. There is made clear from an interesting and unpublished paper by the late Tomas Fiddick, JP of Cambourne, a precis of which is fortunately preserved in Canon Carahs notes. The paper read to the Camborne Old Cornwall Society on 15th June 1925 states:
“St Meriadoc’s Well, which until existed until about 70 years ago was then a wishing well and children dropped pins into it, and expressed some wish, hoping to have their desires fulfilled, This well was inside a wall on the left of what is now Tehidy Road, going from the town, and just opposite St Meradix Villa. It appears to have been drained dry by mine adits and pumping operations at Gustavus mine. The water of the well was thought to have miraculous powers and especially for the insane.”
An interesting account of 1872 comes from the Rev John Bannister (vicar of St Day and author of A glossary of Cornish Names,18721) Reviewing Stokes edition of Beunans Meriasek, he wrote
“At the foot of Fore street also, east of the parish church, is a well still vulgarly called St. Merijicks, and the first Friday in June (some say July) is Teeming-day in Camborne, Some fifty years ago, I was told by an old habitant (who when a youth learnt orally from his uncle, the Cornish numerals up to 20, which he can now, though upwards of 80 years, repeat fluently from memory), no one could pass up the street on this day without having a pitcher of water thrown at him. Something o the kind though not quite so bad is still kept up; and old Hals yells us that persons washing in Camborne well, for the relief of some maladies were called Mereasicks or Mearagasks, though ignorant of St Meriasek, he gives his usual, some strange derivation for it, making it means something like sprinkled with rosemary.”
Bannister must be regarded as a reliable informant and this takes the life of the well a decade later than Thomas Fiddick states ‘Teeming day’ means ‘Pouring day’ from the obsolete dialect word ‘’teem’ pour (out) water preserved only in the English phrase ‘ teeming with rain’.
The famous well is now recalled only by a bronze plaque into the wall of the farmer Rosewarne park, a short distance away on the opposite side of the street. Erected by the late ,Mr James Holman who bought Rosewarne in 1911, it commemorates the starting point of Richard Trevithick’s first run in his road locomotive in 1801 – the birthplace of the modern railway system- and is dated ‘Peace day July 19th 1919’ it concludes ‘Also near this spot was the once famous Well of St. Meriadoc supposed to possess healing qualities of great virtue.
12 Bodryan Well
Henderson recorded a ‘Bodryan Well’ for both 1608 and 1650 as being in Camborne parish. Despite the most intensive search, the writer has been unable to find any other occurrence of this place name, either with reference to a tenement or to a field. It may represent ‘bos plus dreyn ‘ thorns’ or ‘house by the thorns’ but this scarcely helps in locating it.
A note on the locations of the wells listed
The following is based on the new (1963) Ordnance Survey 6 in. revised edition; N.M indicated not marked.
| No | Name | Location | Marked as |
| 1 | Vincent’s Well | SW 67683776 | N.M |
| 2 | Newton Moor Well | SW 6713873 | W |
| 3 | Peter James’ Well | SW 65633728 | W |
| 4 | The Reens Well | SW 65203834 | N.M |
| 5 | Treslothan Well | SW 65143784 | N.M |
| 6 | Silver Well | SW 65253744 | N.M |
| 7 | Pendarves Well | SW 64703812? | N.M |
| 8 | Maudlin Well | SW 61413986 | Spring |
| 9 | Sandcot Well | SW 59304230 | N.M |
| 10 | Fenton-Ia | SW 65833815 | N.M |
| 11 | Fenton -Veryasek | SW 64604052? | N.M |
Ten Year Anniversary of Blogging – restoring the full Source archive
In 2018 I took over the Source Archive which digitally stored the articles from the Source Journal (old series) established by Mark Valentine, Source (new series) edited by Roy Fry and Tristan Gray Hulse and the Living Spring journal established by Richard Penderick who had held onto the archive at Bath University.
The archive has been an invaluable resource but the observant would not know that certain articles were missing and when I took over the archive I stated that I would try to make these available digitally for the first time since in this month’s example since 1994.
Thus at the 10th anniversary of the Insearchofholyandhealingsprings blog site I had decided to complete the task. The first article is a lengthy one so I have decided to divide it into two parts.
This week is a transcription of an article missing from the second of the new series of Source (the first missing) by Professor Charles Thomas:
Antony Charles Thomas, CBE DL FBA FSA FSA Scot was a British historian and archaeologist who was Professor of Cornish Studies at Exeter University, and the first Director of the Institute of Cornish Studies, from 1971 until his retirement in 1991. He was recognised as a Bard of the Cornish Gorseth with the name Gwas Godhyan in 1953. He sadly died in 2016. Again the copyright belongs to the author I shall remove if anyone from his estate requests so.
Professor Charles Thomas
Holy Wells of Cambourne
extracted from Christian antiquities of Cambourne H.E Warne Ltd 1967 pp120-6
by kind permission of the author
Originally published in Source – The Holy wells journal New Series No 2 Winter 1994
Over most of Cornwall, the word ‘well’ is used to describe both artificial-dug vertitical shaft, and a natural spring, whether flowing or static. The traditional ‘holy wells’ of Cornwall are seldom more than a foot or so deep, and can be nothing more than water issuing from the ground or from a rock. In Cornish, a single word normally surfices for both well and spring (OE funten, MC fenten, ModC fenton cf OB funton, ModB feunteum) derived form the Latin fontana, and apparently superseding some such purely Celtic word as that represented by the OC pol ‘pool, well’ The strict term for a dug well, Mod C pyth dialect peeth seems to be confined to domestic usage and does not occur in place names as far as is known.
The wells described in this chapter are all of some age, and have some claim to be regarded as ‘holy’ or ‘lucky’ in the broad sense, while at least three of them are, or were, thought to possess medicinal virtues. In no way can this be claimed to be a complete catalogue of which wells in the parish and there must be many others unknown to the writer – indeed unknown to anyone except the few people who live near them. The selection discussed below nevertheless forms a good representative group, such as may be found in most parishes in west Cornwall. These wells are shown on the map, and their eight-figure National Grid references are listed at the end of this chapter, as many of these wells have never been distinguished on the Ordnance Survey sheets.
- Vincent’s Well This is a copious natural spring which forms one of the sources of the Red River. It can be found, with some difficulty, on the so called Bolenowe Moors (actually a marsh with heavy scrub undergrowth), and is still esteemed in Bolenowe as being of great antiquity, and as possessing water of healing qualities. An old and choked lane leads to it from the farmlands of the Forrest tenement of Illogan, and the well itself seems to be just on the Ilogan side of the Camborne-Illogan bound. The spring issues out from under some horizontal granite slabs. Charles Henderson visited vincent;s well in the 1930s, though he confused it with fenton Io (no. 10 below) He wrote ‘ It is famous throughout the district for its healing qualities especially with regard to the eyes. One old man asserted that doctors had frequently taken some of its waters away to London (this claim is repeated to the writer at Bolenowe in 1962 by several ladies of the village)’…The spring is most difficult to find and approach….it is a fine clear copious spring issuing from the ground, and there are no traces of any building covering it….’Vincent’s Well must be carefully distinguished from ‘Vincent’s Shute’, the name of a spring and watercourse behind the house in Bolenowe village occupied (1962) by the Vincent family. In the case of Vincent’s Well, the Vincent part is probably, as in field-names, a corruption of the Cornish word fenton,
- Newton Moor Well A mile or so down the Red River Valley from Vincent’s Well there is a large patch of uncleared ‘moor’ resting on a bed of decomposed gravel. In the middle of Newton Moor, just south-east of the present Newton Farm, is this well; not very deep, but it has never been known to run dry, even in drought and is enclosed in a high granite structure on top of which is a cast-iron Victorian pump. In front of the well is a paved area of square granite blocks. There is no reason to think that this well is regarded as either holy or medicinal, but it is included here to avoid any further confusion about the well on Newton Moor, and the genuine holy well (no 10 below) on the other Newton tenement at Troon.
- Well at Peter James’ Carwynnen In an open space among several little holdings at Carwynnen, the best-known of which is sometimes named after a recent occupier (Mr P. James), there is a small shallow well enclosed in an arched or covered edifice of rude granite blocks. It is shown here as an instance of a number of wells in the southern half of the parish, all of which are probably medieval in origin. There is a very similar one (4 The Reens Well). In the lower part of the valley called ‘The Reens’, just east of the road from Killoivose to Treslothan, which once served a now vanished farm called ‘Rocks’ or ‘Rock’s farm’ and the writer remembers as a boy seeing yet another somewhere in the woodlands of Pendarves park.
- Treslothan Well The little spring in the central area of Treslothan village, hidden behind a battered iron door, is enclosed in a handsome Gothic arch, and would look more at home in a Breton hamlet than in a Cornish one. Despite the appearance of weathered antiquity, this is really Victorian, a tasteful shrine constructed at the same time as the model village of Treslothan. Visitors sometimes assume wrongly, but understandably that this is a holy well of great age.
- Silver Well No one seems to know where this picturesque name cam from. The little natural spring is so called lies immediately below, and on the west side of, the enclosed public footpath across the former Pendarves Woods at the Stennack – a footpath which runs from the lane behind the vicarage at Treslothan, across a style iontpo the field called Hound close and joins the road from Stennark to Carwynnen Water (Lower Cardwynnen) opposite a modern bungalow. The site is now choked by brushwood resulting from tree felling operations, and few people except some elderley persons in the locality could even locate this spring. Thirty years ago, the write could remember it being a lucky well into which pins had to be thrown for a wish, and it gave its name to Silver Well Lane, the upper part of the roadway from Stennack to Lower Carwynnen.
Part two to include Maudlin Well, Sandcot Well, Fenton-Ia and Bodryan Well
In search of rag wells: Cornish rag wells a photo archive
The clootie tree at St Euny’s Well
![Creative Commons Licence [Some Rights Reserved]](https://s1.geograph.org.uk/img/somerights20.gif)
Cloutie tree near Madron Well
The cloutie tree near Madron Well
The cloutie tree near Madron Well
Sancreed Holy Well
St Credan’s Well, Sancreed
A holy well in a mysterious sea cave
One of the most evocative holy wells is perhaps one of the most unique fittingly. The first to record it was William Hals in his 1685-1736 History of Cornwall. He records that:
“In this parish is that famous and well-known spring of water called Holy-well (so named the inhabitants say, for that the virtues of this water was first discovered on Allhallows- day).”
So far not perhaps that unusual. But he continues:
“The same stands in a dark cavern of the sea- cliff’ rocks, beneath full sea-mark on spring-tides ; from the top of which cavern foils down or distils continually drops of water, from the white, blue, red, and green veins of those rocks. And accordingly, in the place where those drops of water fall, it swells to a lump of considerable bigness, and there petrifies to the hardness of ice, glass, or freestone, of the several colours aforesaid, according to the nature of those veins in the rock from whence it proceeds, and is of a hard brittle nature, apt to break like glass.”
Over a hundred years later, John Cardell Oliver’s 1877 Guide to Newquay romantically records:
“It is a somewhat curious place. After passing over a few boulders the mouth of the cave will be reached, where steps will be found leading up to the well. This rock-formed cistern is of a duplicate form, consisting of two wells, having a communication existing between them. The supply of water is from above; and this water, being of a calcareous nature, has coated the rock with its earthy deposits, giving to the surrounding walls and to the well itself a variegated appearance of white, green and purple. Above and beyond the well will be seen a deep hole extending into the cliff.”
Thomas Quiller-Couch in Holy Wells of Cornwall
“This well has Nature only for its architect, no mark of man’s hand being seen in its construction ; a pink enamelled basin, filled by drippings from the stalactitic roof, forms a picture of which it is difficult to describe the loveliness. What wonder, then, that the simple folk around should endow it with mystic virtues?”
Cures for children
Richard Polwhele, in his 1803 History of Cornwall states
“The virtues of the waters are, if taken inward, a notable vomit, or as a purgent. If applied outward, it presently strikes in, or dries up, all itch, scurf, dandriff, and such-like distempers in men or women. Numbers of persons in summer season frequent this place and waters from countries far distant. It is a petrifying well.”
Further details are given by John Cardell Oliver
“The legend respecting the well is, that in olden times mothers on Ascension Day brought their deformed or sickly children here, and dipped them in, at the same time passing them through the aperture connecting the two cisterns ; and thus, it is said, they became healed of their disease or deformity. It would seem that other classes also believed virtue to reside in its water; for it is said that the cripples were accustomed to leave their crutches in the hole at the head of the well.”
He adds:
“The virtues of this water are very great. It is incredible what numbers in summer season frequent this place and waters from counties far distant.”
Why is it St Cuthbert’s Well?
One account tells how Alchun, Bishop of Holy Island, Lindisfarne in 995 AD to take the body of previous bishop, St Cuthbert, to Ireland to escape Danish raiders. However, it is said that the weather drove them to the north coast of Cornwall where they were beached and settled at time and built a church at Cubert. They presumably rested at the cave and the relics touched the spring which then became holy and healing. After settling down in Cornwall, the Bishop and the relics finally set off to Durham where the saint was finally laid to rest.
This seems a fairly unlikely journey and a story made up by the ill-informed it would seem as the parish is named after St Cubert, an 8th century companion of St Carantoc, who came to convert the local pagans. What is interesting is that there are two holy wells in the parish. A more traditional chapel type being found on higher ground and I would hypothesis that this was constructed to sway local people from visiting the more primeval sea cave. Perhaps as that did not work local Christians applied the St Cuthbert story to the sea cave to attempt to finally push out the pagan connotations – the saintly name however still jars in this most primitive and ancient site.
Interestingly despite it being a wholly natural site it became a Scheduled Monument by Historic England in 2001
Armchair holy wells – a Youtube focus part 3 England
This month theoretically we can start exploring holy wells again (within guidelines of course)…so hopefully for the last time I present England as an armchair journey.
Down from the Piskies – Pelynt’s Nun’s Well, Cornwall
When I first became enchanted with holy wells in the 1980s it was the old engraving of this well which enchanted me the most but it took a few years to get to see it. The mysterious building overshadowed with by a venerable tree. Charles Hope in his 1893 Legendary lore of holy wells put it succinctly:
“Its position was, until very lately, to be discovered by the oak and bramble which grew upon its roof. It is entered by a doorway with a stone lintel, and overshadowed by an oak. The front of the well is of a pointed form, and has a rude entrance about 4 feet high, and is spanned above by a single flat stone, which leads into a grotto, with an arched roof The walls on the interior are draped with the luxuriant fronds of spleen-wort) hart’s tongue, and a rich undercovering of liverwort. “
A pin well
Hope (1893) states that:
“In the basin of the well may be found a great number of pins, thrown in by those who have visited it out of curiosity, or to avail themselves of the virtues of its waters. A writer, anxious to know what meaning the peasantry attach to this strange custom, on asking a man at work near the spot, was told that it was done “to get the goodwill of the Piskies,” who after the tribute of a pin not only ceased to mislead them, but rendered fortunate the operations of husbandry.”
When I last visited in the 1990s I could see no pins but the chamber was full of tea candles suggesting regular visitation. The most noticeable feature is its delightfully intricate basin, possibly the most ornate in situ for any British holy well, so much one wonders where it came from. QuillerCouch notes:
“At the farther end of the floor is a round granite basin with a deeply moulded brim, ornamented lower and all round its circumference with a series of rings, each enclosing a Greek cross or ball. The water must be supplied from an opening at the back; for none runs into it from the rim, and yet it is always full. If emptied, it soon fills again.”
It may have been from a chapel nearby:
“The well, and a small chapel above it, the remains of which are some indistinct mounds, and a vallum, artificially made, on the north and south sides (occasionally the plough turns some shaped stones and roofing slates), were dedicated to St. Nonnet, or St. Nun, a holy woman said to be the mother of St. David, and the daughter of a Cornish chief. She is also said to have lived and died at Altarnun.”
A warning to the sacrilegious
Perhaps the most fascinating legend associated with the well is about its rather ornate basin. Hope (1893) states that:
“An old farmer (so runs the legend) once set his eyes upon the granite basin and coveted it, for it was no wrong in his eyes to convert the holy font to the base uses of a Pigsty and accordingly he drove his oxen and wain to the gateway above for the purpose of removing it. Taking his beasts to the entrance of the well, he essayed to drag the trough from its ancient bed. For a long time it resisted the efforts of the oxen, but at length they succeeded in starting it, and dragged it slowly up the hillside to where the wain was standing. Here, however, it burst away from the chains which held it, and, rolling back again to the well, made a sharp turn and regained its old positions, where it has remained ever since. Nor will anyone again attempt its removal, seeing that the farmer, who was previously well-to-do in the world, never prospered from that day forward. Some people say, indeed, that retribution overtook him on the spot, the oxen falling dead, and the owner being struck lame and speechless.”
Hope continues to paint a picture which continues to inflict our holy wells:
“Though the superstitious hinds had spared the well, time and storms of winter had been slowly ruining it. The oak which grew upon its roof had, by its roots, dislodged several stones of the arch, and, swaying about in the wind, had shaken down a large mass of masonry in the interior, and the greater part of the front. On its ruinous condition being made known to the Trelawny family (on whose property it is situated), they ordered the restoration, and the walls were replaced after the original plan.”
And as such it was restored.
St Nonna’s or Piskie?
Hope (1893) notes that:
“The people of the neighbourhood knew the well by the names St. Ninnie’s, St. Nun’s, and Piskies’ Well. It is probable that the latter is, after all, the older name, and that the guardianship of the spring was usurped at a later period by the saint whose name it occasionally bears. The water was doubtless used for sacramental purposes; yet its mystic properties, if they were ever supposed to be dispensed by the saint, have been again transferred, in the popular belief, to the Piskies.”
Now Piskies are the Cornish version of Pixies and interestingly I noticed the high concentration of midges- were they the Piskies I wonder? Quiller Couch continues:
“Dr. O’Connor tells us that in some parts of Ireland there is a belief that by some of their ceremonies at the patterns, or pilgrimages to wells, the daoini maethe {i.e., fairies) were propitiated. In the basin of St. Nun’s may be found a great number of pins, thrown in by those who avail themselves of the curative qualities of its water, or consult it for intimations of the future. I was curious to know what meaning the. unlettered peasantry attached to this strange but common custom ; and on asking an old man at work near, was told that it was done to get the good-will of the piskies,’ who after the tribute of a pin ceased to mislead them, gave them good health, and made fortunate the operations of husbandry.— T. Q. C.”
Quiller-Couch’s and my visits 100 years apart
“This well when visited in July, 1891, was in a very fair state of preservation, though not now used for any particular purpose. A thorn and a nut tree overshadow it, and ivy creeps from between the masonry. Ferns and mosses grow luxuriantly in the interior, where the trough still stands into which were cast pins in former days ; but the surrounding ground was in such a marshy state to make it impossible to approach near enough to examine any carving which may be on it. A woman, on directing us to the spot, smilingly spoke of having visited the well for the purpose of divination in her younger days ; an old man, who stood by, remarked that no one he had ever heard of knew when or why the well was built there, — but that was very possible, — he had heard that people had attempted to move it, with no success.”
My visit in July 1991 found it an enchanting place, obviously the scale shocked me at first as I expected it to be bigger based on the sketch in Hope. The tree which had been overshadowing it was gone and that lost some of the atmosphere. But it still was an enchanting place, especially creeping inside where that old basin remained and there was a feeling of being with the piskies..
Thanks for Carol Ellis for the 2017 photos!
“There is not a wife in the west country but has heard of the Well of St. Keyne” St. Keyne’s Well, St Keyne’s Cornwall.
An old cigarette card showing a women getting to the well first!
A Well there is in the west country, And a clearer one never was seen; There is not a wife in the west country But has heard of the Well of St. Keyne. An oak and an elm-tree stand beside, And behind doth an ash-tree grow, And a willow from the bank above Droops to the water below. A traveller came to the Well of St. Keyne; Joyfully he drew nigh, For from the cock-crow he had been travelling, And there was not a cloud in the sky. He drank of the water so cool and clear, For thirsty and hot was he, And he sat down upon the bank Under the willow-tree. There came a man from the house hard by At the Well to fill his pail; On the Well-side he rested it, And he bade the Stranger hail. “Now art thou a bachelor, Stranger?” quoth he, “For an if thou hast a wife, The happiest draught thou hast drank this day That ever thou didst in thy life. “Or has thy good woman, if one thou hast, Ever here in Cornwall been? For an if she have, I’ll venture my life She has drank of the Well of St. Keyne.” “I have left a good woman who never was here.” The Stranger he made reply, “But that my draught should be the better for that, I pray you answer me why?” “St. Keyne,” quoth the Cornish-man, “many a time Drank of this crystal Well, And before the Angel summon’d her, She laid on the water a spell. “If the Husband of this gifted Well Shall drink before his Wife, A happy man thenceforth is he, For he shall be Master for life. “But if the Wife should drink of it first,– God help the Husband then!” The Stranger stoopt to the Well of St. Keyne, And drank of the water again. “You drank of the Well I warrant betimes?” He to the Cornish-man said: But the Cornish-man smiled as the Stranger spake, And sheepishly shook his head. “I hasten’d as soon as the wedding was done, And left my Wife in the porch; But i’ faith she had been wiser than me, For she took a bottle to Church.”
Robert Southey
Sacred trees?
This picturesque holy well is perhaps the most unusually associated with the properties that Southery alludes to above. Richard Carew in his 1602 Survey of Cornwall is the first to note the well and its trees:
“I will relate you another of the Cornish natural wonders, viz., St. Kayne’s Well ; but lest you make a wonder first at the saint, before you take notice of the well, you must understand that this was not Keyne, the man queller, but one of a gentler spirit, and milder sex— to wit, a woman. He who caused the spring to be pictured added this rhyme for an exposition : —
‘The name to lot of Kayne befell, No over holy saint, The shape four trees of divers kind, Withy, oak, elm, and ash, Make with their roots an arched roof . Whose floor this spring doth wash. The quality, that man or wife, Whose chance, or choice, attains, First of the sacred stream to drink, Thereby the mastery gains.’”
A 19th century view of well showing the trees above the well
Charles Hope (1893) in his Legendary Lore of Holy Wells records:
“It is a spring of rare virtues in the belief of the country people. It is covered in by masonry, upon the top of which formerly grew five large trees–a Cornish elm, an oak, and three antique ash-trees–on so narrow a space that it is difficult to imagine how the roots could have been accommodated. There now remain only two of these trees–the elm, which is large and fine, and one of the ash-trees.”
The Quiller-Couches (1894) consider in their Holy Wells of Cornwall relates to these trees:
“The trees are not as they were in the time of Carew and Norden. The oak, elm, and withy were blown down in a very fierce storm which occurred in the November of 1703. Some years afterwards, Mr. Rashleigh of Menabilly planted the present trees in their place, five in number, — two oak, two ash, and an elm ; and it is a double wonder, firstly, where in such a scant place they get nourishment ; secondly, why by their roots they do not disrupt the masonry, and ruin the well. When standing on the top of the well, all the trunks could be reached by the extended arms.”
However, they then note:
“On my last visit, one of the oaks was much decayed, and supported by a prop. The well has now no architectural interest, the entrance being a plain round-headed arch of native stone.”
Today these trees have lone gone a result of a repair to the well. Quiller-Couches again note:
“On visiting the well in 1891, we found it in a very dilapidated state, the arch tumbling to pieces. Of the five trees only two are left, an elm and an ash, both fine trees, particularly the elm.”
These concerns prompted the Liskeard Old Cornwall Society in 1936 to completely renovate the well, guided by A. C. Glubb according to Lane Davies who records:
“The trees decayed, the lane was widened….it all looked very new at first with bright granite stones, but will mellow in time.”
Now the well has indeed mellowed and is a delightful find by the roadside
Who was St Keyne?
A daughter of the Prince of Brecknockshire and aunt of St. David, she was said to be a beautiful and very holy women, who was sought by many important men as a bride. She is said to have vanquished serpents from the land by converting them to stone, the remains being fossilised ammonites. She is said to have lived in seclusion but was finally convinced by Cadock to return to which he provided the local people with a water supply by hitting the ground with his staff.
Marriage dominance?
Hope (1893) notes that:
“The well is said to share with St. Michael’s Chair at the Mount the marvellous property of confirming the ascendancy of either husband or wife who, the first after marriage, can obtain a draught of water from the spring, or be seated in the chair.”
It would seem plausible that it was a property derived from a pagan fertility tradition, so unusual is it in its nature. But do people visit it for this? Of this property, the Quiller Couches again comically noted:
“It has been related that Mr. Leah, then rector of the parish of St. Keyne, sent two dozen bottles of this gifted well water to a bazaar in the grounds of Mount Edgcumbe, and that they met with a ready sale at two shillings a bottle, with a loud demand for more.”
When I visited a man was there filling a bottle, I asked him what for and he wryly smiled well ‘just in case’ it was clear he was well aware. I peered into the well, the murky nature of the water, possible as a consequence of a dead mole in it, if I had to drink this to ensure dominance I would be happy to be henpecked!! I much prefer equality anyhow and one wonders in this day and age whether taking a draft was anyway acceptable?
Cornwall’s mysterious Dupath’s Well
It was in the Bord’s trailblazing Mysterious Britain that I first saw a picture of Dupath Well. It looked very mysterious shrouded in undergrowth, peering from the woods like a Cornish Anker Wat. Seeing the illustration reproduced above in Charles Hope’s 1893 Legendary Lore of Holy Wells similarly whetted my appetite.
Hope’s description did however add to the mystery:
“Dupath Well is a pellucid spring, once the resort of pilgrims and still held in esteem. It overflows a trough, and entering the open archway of a small chapel, spreads itself over the floor and passes out below a window at the opposite end. The little chapel, 12 feet long by 11 ½ wide, is a complete specimen of the baptisteries anciently so common in Cornwall. It has a most venerable appearance, and is built of granite, which is gray and worn by age. The roof is constructed of enormously long blocks of granite, hung with fern, and supported in the interior by an arch, dividing the nave and chancel. The doorway faces west; at the east end is a square-headed window of two lights, and two openings in the sides. The building is crowned by an ornamental bell-cote.”
The Quiller- Couch’s in their 1894 Holy Wells of Cornwall note:
“A portion of the front is overrun with ivy ; grass and weeds grow in clumps from the chinks of the roof…… The spot has a deserted look, and breathes of solitude and gloom .”
They added that despite being overgrown was then in a much better state that previous:
“It was found several years since by the Rev. H. M. Rice, Rector of South-hill and Callington (an ardent antiquary, in the line of ecclesiology especially), in a very dilapidated condition. He carefully picked out the ruins lying around; and, with the carefulness of one trying to put together a dissected puzzle, succeeded in restoring the well.”
The site certainly was of considerable interest. I finally succeeding in making the pilgrimage in the early 1990s. Despite English Heritage’s considerable tidying up of the site and Hope’s widely over ambitious sizing, the site was and is one of the most impressive holy wells in the county.
Dupath’s Well today by Tony Aiken https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Dupath_Well_Chapel_-_geograph.org.uk_-_292327.jpg
Hope (1893) notes that:
“The well is famed for the combat between Sir Colam and Gotlieb for the love of a lady; Gotlieb was killed, and Sir Colam died of his wounds.”
Parochial History of Cornwall the tradition connected with this well was as follows :
“ A duel was fought here between two Saxons, named Gotlieb and Sir Colan, as rival candidates for a young lady. Gotlieb was a private gentleman of considerable wealth; while Sir Colan, though a knight, was poor. The father of the lady wished her to marry Gotlieb, on account of his wealth ; but she preferred Sir Colan, whom she had known from childhood. Sir Colan received the first wound, but ultimately overcame Gotlieb and killed him. The contest was long and desperate ; Sir Colan’s wound would have healed but for his impatience, to which he fell a victim.”
Quiller-Couch note that:
“There are several versions of this romantic story, the names differing in some cases, and usually the victorious one is described as surviving the effects of the duel, and building Dupath Well as an act of atonement for his sin and a witness of his repentance.”
Now Quiller Couch questioned veracity of the legend:
“This well has suffered greatly from being made the peg on which to hang modern-antique fable. The country people know nothing of Siward and Githa , who are purely the creation of individual fancy. Mr. Kempthorne, long a resident of Callington, has inquired among the eld, and can find no trace of such a story ; and Mrs. Rice, the widow of the restorer of the well, says that her husband would most assuredly have embodied in his paper any reputed mystic qualities or local traditional tales had any such existed.”
However, followers of this blog will see some familiarity with this story and that related by Guest Blogger Frank Earp in his post on Newark’s St Catherine’s Well, which I recommend readers to read and compare with this story. In short Frank considers that the story hides an older story perhaps emphasizing the battle between the summer and the winter. Does the story relate ome folk memory of the sites importance in pre-Christian ritual remembered here. It is interesting to note that the Newark legend is also said to be made up story! One also wonders whether the Cornish name Fenton Hynsladron, spring of the robber’s path hides a link possibility to this story.
Of its history and tradition the English Heritage website tells us that:
“The small chapel-like building was probably built in about 1510 by the Augustinian canons of the nearby priory of St Germans, to whom the site belonged. It was dedicated to St Ethelred.
The little building may have been a worthwhile financial investment for the canons of St Germans, since visitors to the spring would have left offerings, much as they do at wishing wells today. We know from monastic records that such sources of income were jealously guarded by religious houses.”
They note that the well’s water was used for whopping cough and may have been for baptism, possibly bowsenning – ie curing madness.
Today people still visit the well and perhaps take the waters, although it lacks the paraphernalia that attracts wells in the west of the county. A delightful if slightly sanitised well a record of what many other wells would have looked like if they had not let the rigors of time and zealots rob us of them!
The veneration of Water in 12 objects…number nine the pin
To those reading this blog, who may not be overly familiar with the study of Holy wells and healing springs, may be familiar with the throwing of coins into springs. However, this is a relatively recent invention, before this activity, itself of course quite expensive in older times – pins were used.
Madron Well © Copyright Malcolm Kewn and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
Pins you may ask? Why would you have a pin on you? Well of course in those days pins were commonly used, especially by women to hold hats on and so were generally available. A glance through works such as Jones on Holy Wells of Wales and Hope’s Legendary Lore of Holy Wells produces quite a number.
The custom was quite widespread from Northumberland (Worm Well) to much of Wales where at for example at Ffynnon Enddwyn, Merioneth, Wales evil spirits were ward off by doing so. At Piran’s Well, Cornwall, Hope (1893) tells us:
“Beside a path leading to the oratory of St. Pirian’s, in the sands, there is a spot where thousands of pins may be found. It was the custom to drop one or two pins at this place when a child was baptized.”
At Bede’s Well, Jarrow Durham, as noted before ill children were brought to the well and crooked pin was put in and at St. Helen’s Well, Sefton, Lancashire would inquire about the fidelity of their lovers, dates of marriage etc by as Hope (1893) notes:
“the turning of the pin- point to the north or any other point of the compass.”
In Chepstow, Monmouthshire a well called, the Pin Well, Hope (1893) again notes:
“those who would test the virtues of its waters said an ave and dropped a pin into its depth.”
Certain days were associated with giving pins. May time, particularly at St Maddern’s Well, Madron the first Thursday in May to consult this oracle by dropping pins states Borlase (1769) in his Antiquities of Cornwall.The Wishing well of St. Roche, Cornwall it was visited on Holy Thursday or Ascension Day. At Wooler, Northumberland, the Pin Well was visited by a procession of people from the village on May Day and each would drop a crooked pin into it and made a wish. Cruelly bent pins were daily thrown into St. Warna’s Well, Isle of Scilly to wish for ship wrecks! However in the majority of cases it was for a benefit of the depositer in a positive way. Quiller Couch in Holy Wells of Cornwall (18??) notes that at Menacuddle Well:
“On approaching the margin, each visitor, if he hoped for good luck through life, was expected to throw a crooked pin into the water, and it was presumed that the other pins which had been deposited there by former devotees might be seen rising from their beds, to meet it before it reached the bottom, and though many have gazed with eager expectation, no one has yet been permitted to witness this extraordinary phenomenon. “
There appears to be an association with fairies and pins. At the Pisky Well, Altarnun Hope (1893) states:
“In the basin of the well may be found a great number of pins, thrown in by those who have visited it out of curiosity, or to avail themselves of the virtues of its waters. A writer, anxious to know what meaning the peasantry attach to this strange custom, on asking a man at work near the spot, was told that it was done “to get the goodwill of the Piskies,” who after the tribute of a pin not only ceased to mislead them, but rendered fortunate the operations of husbandry.”
Such an association appears as far north as Cartmel, Cumbria. Stockdale, in Annals of Cartmel notes:
“Near to this holy well are two cavities in the mountain limestone rock called the ‘Fairy Church’ and the ‘Fairy Chapel,’ and about three hundred yards to the north there used to be another well, called ‘Pin Well’, into which in superstitious times it was thought indispensable that all who sought healing by drinking the waters of the holy well should, on passing it, drop a pin; nor was this custom entirely given up till about the year 1804, when the Cartmel Commoners’ Enclosure Commissioners, on making a road to Rougham, covered up this ‘Pin Well’. I have myself long ago seen pins in this well, the offerings, no doubt, of the devotees of that day.”
In many places, such as at St. Philip’s Well, near Keyingham, Yorkshire girls would caste pins for love predictions. At Brayton Barf, Yorkshire, a reason for this is given. A local woman is said to have been enchanted by the fairies looking into a well here and they appeared to explain to her their need for pins. Apparently, they used hawthorn thorns for their arrows and these were very ineffective but some of the fairy folk had noticed that the pins used by local women would be an ideal replacement. However, the fairies had no real way of obtaining the pins by enchantment and so they arranged that any women who visited the well and dropped a pin would find out the identity of their true love reflected in the water. After awaking from her enchantment she threw a pin in and she saw the face of her sweetheart and so spread the news and the fairies got their arrows! Sadly, the well is lost. However, the tradition has spread as far as Rhosgoch in Herefordshire where Hope (1893) was told:
“who haved close to the well for two years, tells me that the bottom was bright with pins — straight ones he thinks — and that you could get whatever you wished for the moment the pin you threw in touched the bottom.” ” It was mostly used for wishing about sweethearts.”
Despite this rather imaginative reason for dropping pins, why were pins dropped. Well in many cases, when the pin was bent, this action resembled that done in prehistoric times to swords deposited in ritual areas as votive objects. For example it may be significant that at some wells pricking the finger before casting it away may have had a deeper meaning. Does it represent a sacrificial aspect to giving a votive offering? So perhaps take a small pin box and caste a pin not a coin if you must.
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