Category Archives: Worcestershire
Mysterious creatures of springs and wells – Frogs and wells
Frog and toads not unsurprisingly you might think are associated with springs. Two old English words O.E frosc meaning frog or O.E paddock for a ‘toad’ and their derivations can be found across the country.
In Essex there are a number of Freshwell derivations which suggest from Frosc. The earliest being a Freshwell mentioned in 1086 in Great Sampford, Freshwell in the 13th century and another in Saffron Walden first mentioned in 1605. In Panfield there was a Froshwell mentioned in 1586 and Upminster a Frogwell.
There seems a strange conglomeration of such sites in Essex and elsewhere it is more common to find toads. In Staffordshire, Padwalle first mentioned in 1481in Longnor and Padwell in Barborough, as Padwell (1830) and Edwalston and Wyaston a 1314 Padewalle. In Leicestershire there is a Paddock Well noted in 1638 in Church Langton, Leicestershire and Padwell in Fulstow (from the 1840 Tithe map) and Tadewell a 13th century mention in Ferriby. Kent’s Birling has a Puddle Well noted in 1837 and a Tadwell in Minster in Sheppey (noted in 1840). There are surely others but why?
The obvious answer is that frogs and toads live in springs. However, they do not or rather very rarely. I’ve never seen one in a spring or well – perhaps the rarity offers a reason but it may be deeper than that. Toads in particular have supernatural connotations and a clue may be found in the Frogwell at Acton Burnell in Shropshire which folklore suggests the well was a guardian. Did people visit these wells to utilise the frogs for magical practices or was the frog seen as some sort of harmful creature.
Another possible source is that these animal represent totem animals which specific prehistoric groups associated with – akin to the spirit animals of first nation groups such as in the USA and Canada. This might explain the frequency of them in areas such as Essex perhaps.
In search of rag wells: St Kenelm’s Well Clent a photo archive
St Kenelm’s Well is not a tradition rag well location (although there is circumstantial evidence of the custom in Worcestershire) and the nature of the clooties left suggest a pagan association perhaps. Below is a photo archive of a visit in 2011.
Prayer flags at the well
Ribbons, bells and fake flowers the most common cloottie
Some more traditional cotton handkerchiefs
The occurrence of similar rag colours suggests repeat visitors 
One a number of socks attached to branches
Motorcycle glove perhaps in thanks for a safe journey 
Simon de Montfort’s Battle Well – the holy well of a would be saint
A rather uninspiring pond in a field outside of Evesham is the site of perhaps one of the most fascinating healing springs in England.
A saintly Simon de Montfort?
Much is written of Simon de Montfort but it short his establishment of two parliaments during his interloping coup against Henry II and short rule he is seen as the father of parliamentary democracy. His death at the Battle of Evesham, which saw the rightful monarchy restored, resulted after miracles were reported at his shrine, to be an politico-religious saint and pilgrimages occurred through the late 1200s. Amongst the cures at his tomb Gunnell of Ketton’s son Harry who took dust from it to cure his paralysis and a hen from Sulgrave, Northants was revived to life!
The miraculous creation of a spring
Not unsurprisingly, what with the evocation of Simon and his miracles at the tomb, attention would turn to the site of his demise or in the eyes of his followers ‘martyrdom’. In the 1840 Halliwell translation of the circa 1280 The Miracles of Simon de Montfort, an account records how a Piers de Saltmarsh in 1274 was travelling in the retinue of William Beauchamp of Elmley, one of the Kings’ supporters over the site of the Battle of Evesham. This is said to have happened before June 1266 it is said. Piers doubted Simon’s saintliness and called on him to prove it by providing them, miraculously, with living waters, Piers then:
“seized a horse’s shoulder blade, and began to dig. God works wonders! Out of that dusty hard ground there shot up a spring of sweet water, high as the hills”.
An interesting precursor to this would appear have to been recorded by William rector of Warrington who is said to have taken away earth from the site of the earl’s death and was able to have a dying man by mixing this with water.
Of course the discovery of the spring need not be that miraculous as William Tindal noted in 1794 the spring was normally dry in summer and was just a depression in the ground. Of course both William and Piers were not local and thus would not be familiar with any intermittent spring in the area.
Miracles and cures at the well
Halliwell (1840) again tells how a‘ contemporary authority’ in the 1270s that:
“some say that there have been many miracles at his tomb, and that on the spot where he was killed there is now an excellent spring which has healed those suffering from all kinds of sickness; but nobody dares tell the world of this, for fear of the King and his party”.
The Miracles of Simon de Montfort tell how between 1274 and 1279 record ten miracles of healing from ‘the Earl Simon’s well’ Alice of Burton Overy Leicestershire merely kept vigil and was cured. However most cures were from drinking or washing themselves in water which was brought to them; water was taken as far as Oxfordshire, Thanet, Dunstable and London. Such were Stephen Aungevin’s young son at Dunstable Bedfordshire, Alexander of Suffolk, a citizen of London although some immobile recipients lived nearer such as Harry Chaunteler of Bretforton and a woman at Elmley Castle. Of her a supplementary miracle is recorded. . She is said to have journeyed with a jug to fill it with the miraculous water for her mistress. However, at the time there was an attempt to stem the cult and visitors to the well. As such some soldiers sent to prevent people visiting stopped her and when they looked inside the jug saw only beer and let her pass. However by the time she gave it to her mistress at Elmley, it contained water!
Certainly large numbers appear to have attended the site, when Ralph of Boklande of Thanet bathed his leg in the well it is said that he was cured:
“in the site of many people.”
It is recorded that people were even carried in carts from as far away as Leicestershire and even London. A ritual was established in which they would drink at the well, and either worship there or at Evesham Abbey. Even animals were cured A winded palfrey ( a docile horse), being rode by the Countess of Gloucester being cured there. The Miracles recording:
“The Countess of Gloucester had a palfrey that had been broken-winded for two years. In returning from Evesham to Tewkesbury, the horse having drunk of the Earl’s Well and having had its head and face washed in the water, recovered of this. The Countess and all her company are witnesses”,
The 1910 Evesham Journal reports that:
“until a very little time ago… there was a belief that this water was very efficacious for weak eyes… People often visited the spring and took water away with them to bathe their eyes’
The establishment of a chapel
Understandably, the well attracted considerable trade and obviously money. Alms being given at the spring by a follower of Simon, Robert de Vere, the Earl of Oxford around either 1273 or 1279.
Despite a decline in the cult by the 1280s the well’s famed did not die with it and it appease to have survived long after it with a chapel. In 1448 The Brut by Richard Fox, a monk of St Albans it is recorded:
“where the battle and murder was is now a well, and grete elmes stande about the well; there is over the well an hovel of stone (a canopy), and a crucifix and Mary and John”.
This appeared to suggest that something of a wayside cross or Calvary was present there but no other authority records it and there is certainly not trace. By 1457 the site was called Battle Well and in that year Abbot John Wickham’s receiver accounted for the abbots expenditure of one penny there. A flyleaf inscription in a missal of 1489 indicates that:
‘to the chapel of le Battell Welle’.
After the Reformation
The chapel appears to have continued until the Reformation, and the Battle well was still remembers long after. In 1702 a man was fined for ‘nuisance at Battle well’ suggesting either he was disturbing those visiting the site or annoying the landowner in attempting to gain access.
Richard Pococke records in his 1757 Travels records:
‘I walk’d near a measured mile to Battle Wells, in the northern road… They say the battle was in the road…and they told me that they found in the road a vault full of bones, which formerly might be under some chapel’.
William Tindal in their 1794, The History and Antiquities of the Abbey and Borough of Evesham records:
‘a little nearer the town, on the same side, is the spot called Battle-well’,
Nathan Izod names and precisely marks it on his 1827 map and it appears on the 1886 OS map as well. It then lay 120 yards west of the road about 200 yards northwest of the mile post and about 145 yards southwest of the Worcester road junction. Richardson (1927) in their Wells and springs of Worcestershire identifies it as
“simply a field-pond situate at the head of a valley that runs down to the River Avon.”
Cox in his translation of the Chronicle of Evesham Abbey provides a map, and says that:
‘examination of the site in 1961… confirmed that Battlewell at present derives its water from land-drainage, and often dries up completely in Summer. In a rainy season, however, it may be filled’.
As D.C. Cox in their Battle of Evesham a new account records:
“The apparent continuity of the name Battle well from the fifteenth century to the nineteenth and the consistency of the early written references, both with each other and with the nineteenth century maps, make it reasonable to suppose that the present Battle well is the fifteenth century one.”
However they cautiously note:
“Earl Simon’s well, according to the thirteenth century collection of Montfortian miracle stories, lay near the Evesham -Kenilworth road at the top of the hill which the battle was fought. That it was the later and present Battle well cannot be proved but cannot easily be doubted.”
Today one can trace this site quite easily although it is unclear of access rights. The site is free to observe during the annual blessing at the well each August however, A simple spring fed pool but one where history, folklore and belief are intrinsically intertwined.
Rediscovered/Restored: The mineral well of Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire
A search for fresh water
When landowner Mr S. H. Godson was looking for a better supply of water in , he exposed a brine mineral water which although not good for drinking could have potential. Then Dr. A. B. Granville took an interest. In 1837 he had written a book on The Spas in Germany which aroused much interest and in 1839/1840 he undertook a tour of England and in the Midlands section he toured Buxton, Matlock, Woodhall, Spa, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Tenbury, Malvern, Leamington, Cheltenham etc. He wrote of the waters describing the effect on them on his digestive system:
“Immediately upon swallowing half a tumbler of Tenbury water, a disturbance, or rather a commotion, is set up in the abdomen, which, upon a repetition of the same quantity of the fluid, after a proper interval, will be found in most cases to end in a way desirable in the circumstances.”
Visiting the site 1839 Grenville advised on modifications to the well structure in which would prevent contamination from other springs and prevent dilution of the mineral properties. His analysis suggested it contained Iodine and as such would have healing properties. To be successful, Grenville suggested that to be successful the town needed:
“baths pump rooms and a promenades, lodging houses, walks roads and other accommodation in order to constitute a Spa of the first class.”
There was a problem with such an enterprise, Godson’s land at The Court could not be expanded as there was local opposition. Grenville however was so keen it seeing the site developed that his son, an architect, was sent but this was to no available Mr. Price of the adjacent Crown Inn decided that one well was not enough to supply the amount of bottled water needed. He commenced sinking a well on his premises and on August 24th 1840 at a depth of 42ft he reached the mineral water layer. This opposition was soon bought out by Septimus Godson. They and the small red brick bath house was constructed in 1840, and by March 1841 they published the rules and regulations for using the well, the Court ground were used for promenading after drinking or bathing often listening to a band. Then by 1850 a London surgeon was in residence running the Spa and two wells were now available. However, financial difficulties made the site close albeit temporarily in 1855, but the coming of the railway revitalised it. Local businessmen developed the ‘Tenbury Wells Improvement Company’ in December of 1860 and built the present pump room on the meadow by the Swan Hotel. In A Mr. James Cranston of Birmingham in 1862 was behind the design of new Spa, consisting of 2 halls with a Pump Room including a recess with a fountain. The Spa. An octagonal tower was built containing the well and pumps. the whole were surrounded by pleasure grounds. The building costing approximately £1000.
Taking a 99 year lease on the site, the Tenbury Wells Improvement Company asked Mr Thomas Morris, well sinker, to remove the whole of the bricks, curls and ironwork from the old mineral well by the Swan Inn and used at the new site. However, the Crow’s well was cleaned and established as a reservoir. The Well was 58ft from the surface and produced mineral water at the rate of 20 gallons hour. The smell was said to be something like when a gun was discharged.
The Tenbury History website state:
“He got the idea for the design of the Spa from some greenhouses he was designing at Holmer, near Hereford. In 1862 he published a book about a newly patented design for Horticulural Buildings and he used this principle for The Tenbury Spa replacing glass panels with those of sheet steel, It was erected on a pre-fabricated principle being one of the first in the country. The wrought iron plates and cast iron clips with foliated ends were made in Birmingham and erected on site. The building was described as being ‘Chinese Gothic’. The roof was painted in French Grey with rolls between being deeper and bluer in shade. The Spa was supposed to attract the ‘Middle to Working Class’.”
On May 1st 1883 the baths opened for the summer season, they consisted of six hot baths cost 9/- ( 45p) and six cold baths 5/- (25p). It was suggested by the 1916 Medical Times that after the first world war, convalescent soldiers should go to Tenbury Wells and by 1913 the name of Tenbury Wells had stuck becoming official later. Ironically the Pump rooms were about to decline. During the war it was used for bathing evacuees but this was the last time it was used for any bathing albeit not medicinal. Despite plans as late as 1931 the wells were filled in in 1939.
Slowly the building fell into decline, becoming a brewery, a tea room and Women’s institute but by 1978 it was in serious decline and decay. Kathleen Denbign in her A hundred British Spas wrote in 1981
“In such a bad state of decay that it was bolted and barred and threatened with demolition – though not without protest from local residents.”
It was purchased by the Leominster District Council in 1986 but that did not halt the decline. Repairs were finally done in 1998/9 with funds from English Heritage, Advantage West Midlands, the European Regional Development Fund, Malvern Hills and Leominster District Councils and Teme Rural Challenge. The Tenbury wells history website note the problems with the repair:
“The major problem that the architects responsible for the repair had to deal with was a major sag of one of the portal frames over the conservatory glass. It appears to have been due to bad design. Each roof structure now has a steel member going down to a concrete block cast at foundation level.
There was also a big problem with regalvanising the wrought iron sheets. After being regalvanised they buckled and would not fit the structure. This was solved by sending the sheets to specialist car body firm in the Medway who were used to dealing with very thin steel. Another big problem was to ensure that the roof was watertight. The roof was an extremely complicated shape, there were valleys and areas of flat roof and all sorts of unusual angles between one part of the building and another. It never was watertight originally, but hopefully, all the problems have now been solved.
All the wrought iron sheets now have spaces between them to try and stop any rust problems recurring and it has been fully insulated. A lot of the brick work was only 1/2 brick thick and so would always have been rather wobbly. This has all been straightened, but still keeping the exterior as it was built in 1862.
With insulation, damp barriers and other weatherproofing measures means that it is now up to modern building standards and hopefully now as an office and tiny museum one can now peer into the well, see its ornate foundation, baths and read all about it. It was probably originally designed for a life of only 25 years, but has lasted 137 years.
Amongst the Cloutties..St. Kenelm’s Well, Romsey
Now, take St Kenelm’s life which I’ve been reading;
He was Kenulph’s son, the nobel king
Of Mercia. Now St Kenelm dreamt a thing
Shortly before they murdered him one day.
He saw his murder in a dream, I say . . .
Chaucer The Nun’s Priest’s Tale
Ever since my visit to St. Kenelm’s Well at Winchombe some twenty years ago I have wanted to see his other well. For some unknown reason it has taken me until recently to complete the pilgrimage to the site of his martyrdom. However, unlike his other well at Winchombe the search is less clear cut here!
His legend spawned a town Kenulstowe, which boasted a pub named the Red Cow named after the cow who stood over his temporary grave in his legend – more of which latter. It was a major source of pilgrimage causing major settlements like Halosowen Abbey.
The first site we can identify is the 14th century church. Dedicated to the saint it lays in Clent Hills and despite its more recent date is supposedly built upon an older foundation. Sadly it was locked on the day I visited.
Here in this remote corner of Worcestershire, still remote and isolated despite the beckoning conurbations of Dudley and Wolverhampton on the horizons, the story of the saint begins. It is said that in around 819, Kenelm became the King of Mercian at the death of his father Kenulph. A powerful title but a dangerous one for a boy of seven with many jealous and plotting eyes looking on.
To protect the new King he was placed under the care of his sister Quendryh and foster-father Askebert. However, like many familiar stories of children with inheritances given over to step parents, black days were ahead. At first they tried poisoning but this failed. Then they agreed on a plot which would work. Take the boy hunting and then kill in such a way which would suggest an accident. However, the night before the fateful event, Kenelm had a prophetic dream. In the dream he climbed a tree decorated with lanterns and flowers and from here he was able to see all his kingdom in four parts. All but three bowed down before him but the last refused and instead tried to cut down the tree and in doing so he fell. Upon falling he was transformed into a white bird and flew away. He work and wondered the meaning of the dream and was told by an old Winchombe wise-women who wept with sorrow. Resigned to his fate, he rode with Askbert as arranged and as he knelt to pray was decapitated by the traitor. His body was then hidden beneath a thorn tree or else placed a twig in the ground which sprouted into an ash tree. But Askbert would not escape justice because as the boy died a dove rose from his body and it carried a scroll to Rome dropping it at the Pope’s feet. Reading it, it states:
“Low in a mead of kine under a thorn, of head bereaft, lieth poor Kenelm king-born”.
Realising what the message meant, the Pope sent men to England to recover the body. These missionaries met upon an old cattle herding woman and they noticed that one of her herd would always be separate from the flock and stand by a sole thorn tree, never drinking nor eating. This they saw as a sign and so they begun to dig. Soon they discovered the boy’s body and by doing so a spring arose:
“as the holy and gracious sod was lifted up, right from his dusty grave a holy spring burst forth, which to this day flows into the stream and gives healing to the many who drink from it”.
Shorter Life of St Kenelm tells how:
“where the martyr fell stained by his rich red blood, there a holy well flowed out, a source even now of both water and health to the faithful.”
A confused legend?
Obviously the legend has suffered from considerable embroilment over the mediaeval years. What is known is that a Kenulph did reign and he did have a son called Kenelm who was born in 786. This Kenelm is mentioned in a number of documents, charters, deeds and letters, until 811. Then he died. It fits the legend except the age – Kenelm was a 25 year old not 7! He did have a sister, Quendryh but she was a nun at Kenulph death! Smith and Taylor (1995) suggest the significance of number 7 as a mystical number, his name deriving from the words rune and tree, and the sacrificial importance of kingly death suggest a story resonant in pagan origins.
Evidence of the well
It was evident that his cult spread quickly as churches in France were already remembering him by the 10th century. However, the first historical mention of the well is in the endowments of Halesowen Abbey’s foundation in 1215 when a chapel was erected by the well. By the 14th century this was enlarged presumably as the church we can see today. An estate on the Clent Hills around this spring formed part of the foundation endowments of Halesowen Abbey in 1215. There was a chapel by the well, which was rebuilt on a larger scale in the fourteenth century. It stood at the head of a valley with the ground sloping downwards to the east, so the east end of the building was reconstructed in two storeys with a crypt or under croft below the chancel to enclose the spring. There was an arch (now blocked) in the south wall of the chancel, opening on a stairway which led down to the well. This would appear to be based on the original chapel mentioned in the 1473 Patent Roll where a grant was made for repair and installation of a chaplain.
Treadway Nash (1781–2) in his Collections for the History of Worcestershire notes:
“at the east end of St Kenelm’s chapel-yard is a fine and plentiful spring, and till of late years there was a well (now indeed filled up) handsomely coped with stone and much resorted to, both before and since the Reformation, by the superstitious vulgar, for the cure of sore eyes and other maladies”.
Yet by the end of the century it was described as
“now dry, and nearly hid with weeds and brush.”
However, in 1848 the local Lyttleton family restored the building but:
“the water, which up time had flowed from the east end of the church, was in some way diverted, and the well is now some yards from the building.”
Which is the well?
This appears to have been the beginning of the confusion by 1890, Amphlett was stating:
“there is no spring under the present St Kenelm’s church; there is one, however, but a very small one, under a hedge some fifty yards away. But a little further off, perhaps some five hundred yards, in the garden of the Spring Farm, is a magnificent spring of water; and this is, perhaps, the original spring round which the tradition has formed”.
It was as if the well beneath the church did not exist and the original well lie elsewhere. Soon Richardson (1927) in his Survey of Worcestershire water supply stated that it was:
“a small dip-well under a stone that carries the footpath from the Church down the valley.”
This was probably the same noted by The Bords (1985) in their Sacred Waters they appear to have reinforced this location and Bord (2008) produces a photo of the said well in her Holy Wells of Britain. Nevertheless, in his The Crown and the Well for On the Edge Journal Mike Smith and David Taylor (1995) identifies as a pool among the earthworks of the deserted village north of the church. They add that:
“a small stone-covered hollow with its brightly rag-covered tree nestles to the east of the church and probably dates from Victorian times. The monstrous brick wall well-head situated close by was built in 1985 by Lord Cobham of nearby Hagley Hall”.
The site today
Behind the church can be easily found the valley where the spring arises and flows. Although where is the actual well? If it is said to arise beneath the church it is certainly not here – but does that mean geographically below? The most obvious finding is a large stone or concrete well head with a semi-circular dip well. Is this the well? Some say yes, but it does not appear to be that shown in the Bords and was only built in 1985 as above states, was it the confusion over where exactly it is that prompted its construction? However, it is the proliferation of cloutties around a nearby tree give us a clue. Here prayers, gloves, teddy bears, bunting, even socks litter the trees and bushes nearby. Just below appears to be a small arch of stone, natural or man-made? It is difficult to tell, but this would appear to be match that shown by Bord as the genuine well – sadly dry. However, does this really matter as it appears that the true well has moved around as the spring line has changed? Yet among the thickets and gnarled old trees, the sound of birds and mud under foot, one can cast oneself back to the scene of this strange story – which whatever the truth has captivated through the centuries, whatever its origins..
Where did his body go next? https://insearchofholywellsandhealingsprings.wordpress.com/2012/03/19/st-kenelms-well-at-winchcombe/
A well for April: St Richard’s Well, Droitwich
The third of April is St Richard’s Day a day which was greatly celebrated in his home town of Droitwich for his associations with the local brine pits which became holy in association with him.
Take with a pinch of salt
John Leland in his Itinerary, written around 1540 gives the legend:
“Some say that this salt springe dyd fayle in the tyme of Richard de la Wiche Byschope of Chichester and that after by his intercession it was restored to the profit of the old course. Such is the superstition of the people. In token whereof, or for the honour that the Wiche-men and saulters bare unto this Richard their cuntre-man, they used of late tymes on his daye to hang about this sault spring or well once a yeere with tapestry, and to have drinking games and revels at it.”
John Aubrey noted that:
“on the day of St Richard the Patron of ye Well (i.e.) saltwell, they keep Holyday, dresse the well with green Boughes and flowers. One yeare sc. Ao 164-, in the Presbyterian times it was discontinued in the Civil-warres; and after that the spring shranke up or dried up for some time. So afterwards they kept their annuall custome (notwithstanding the power of ye Parliament and soldiers), and the salt-water returned again and still continues.”
This appears to have been an early record of well dressing in the country, albeit not as elaborate as those of Derbyshire today and simply arches over the well to give thanks. When this custom fell into abeyance is unclear, but it was probably around the Reformation
Worth his salt
Richard was born in Wyche, and a house in the town records this, around 1197 and his image in the church was a site of pilgrimage. A ‘new’ statue, in 1935, was erected in Vynes Park, once an industrial site where the salt was removed.
The brine pits
In Vynes Park was the Upwich Pit which is believed to be St. Richard’s Well it was built in 1264-5. Excavation in the 1990s revealed a long history dating from the Roman period. However, what greets us now is a bit of a controversial site – a replica erected in 2000! It is filled with salty algae covered water which is not directly connected to the source below as it was capped. So strictly speaking St. Richard’s well no longer exists but a replica sort of does!
The return to a modern celebration
A version of the old celebration have been recently restored but set at the end of April or beginning of May, when the weather can be better (generally!) Now, the town of Droitwich celebrates the saint with a modern event which combines elements of the traditional custom with modern twists. The replica Upwich pit and a brine pump in town are imaginatively dressed in honour of the saint with a model of a swan made of flowers and other flower dressing. Around the town, there are displays of Morris dancers, Maypole dancing, historical re-enactments and a most bizarrely vintage car display…..which rather surreally spreads through the quaint streets of the town. Certainly worth a visit when you’re in the area.
An overview of Royal wells
Much has been written regarding holy wells culminating in Harte (2008) magnus opus but no survey has attempted to record all those wells and springs named after monarchs as far as I am aware. With Jubilee fever all around I thought it would be fitting to start an overview of this aspect of water lore in England. Starting with King well, a generic name, is by far the commonest with sites recorded at Chalk (Kent), Cuffley (Hertfordshire) (although associated with James I), Chigwell (Essex) (although probably cicca’s well)), Lower Slaughter (Gloucestershire), Kingsthorpe (Northamptonshire), Orton (Northumberland), Cheltenham (Gloucestershire), Ellerton (Staffordshire), Wartling (Sussex), and Bath (Somerset). Some of these such as Chigwell may be a etymological mistake being more likely derive from Cicca’s well and some such as Orton are thought to be associated with Iron age sites.
However, English wells and their associations with monarchs starts perhaps starts with King Arthur’s Well (Cadbury ) but taking this probably mythical king aside, and not considering those monarchs associated with the Celtic and Saxon Kingdoms (after all a high percentage of these early saints were the sons of Kings (such as those begat by King Brechan) or early kingly Christian converts for example St Oswald or St Ethelbert ) which are better known by their sanctity rather than their majesty, I start with sites associated with who is seen as being the first King of England; Alfred.
King Alfred’s Well (Wantage) is of unclear vintage arising as it does in a brick lined chamber although his association with the town is well known. However as Benham (1911) notes in his The Letters of Peter Lombard:
“a clear and bright spring, but I fear that the evidence that King Alfred ever had anything to do with it is not forthcoming. The site of his birthplace is not very far from the well”
Although that did not stop a procession to the well in the year 2000! St Peter’s Pump at Stourhead (Wiltshire) too has become associated with Alfred and it is said he prayed for water her before a battle, there is again little evidence if any of this. In East Dean (Sussex) there is another well named after him. Interestingly the direct descendents of Alfred do not appear to have gained any association with wells, perhaps being a measure of either their impact on folk memory. The next king is the rather tragic figure of Harold. Harold’s Well laying in the Keep of Dover Castle (Kent) is an interesting site, it is a typical castle well and unlikely to be the site where Harold is said to have according to Macpherson (1931) (MacPherson, E. R., The Norman Waterworks in the Keep of Dover Castle. Arch Cant. 43 (1931)) been were the King swore he would give with the castle to William of Normandy, later William I. (Wartling’s King well may record Harrold or William)
I can find no wells associated with the Norman Kings or Queens and the next monarch to appear is King John. He is interestingly the monarch with most sites associated with him, being in Heaton Park (Newcastle), Odell (Bedfordshire), Kineton (Warwickshire) and Calverton (Nottinghamshire) (although the later is recorded as Keenwell). This may be the consequence of his infamy and association with Robin Hood sites taking on his name in the telling and re-telling of Robin Hood tales. However, in most cases it would appear to be sites associated with a castle although surely King John was not the only monarch to have used such sites.
The next monarch associated with a well is a prince, a man who despite being heir apparent, never reached the throne. The Black Prince, a very romantic figure and with an evocative name, his spring is perhaps the most well known of those associated with royalty: the Black Prince’s Well, Harbledown (Kent). Legend has it that he regularly drank from the well and asked for a draught of it as he lay sick and dying of syphilis. However, the water’s powers did not extend to this and he died never becoming king. The well has the three feathers, sign of the Prince of Wales, an emblem captured at Crecy although the origin and age of the well is unknown it is the only such spring with any insignia of a monarch.
The subsequent centuries saw a number of squirmishes and conflicts which also created some springs associated with royalty. Perhaps the most interesting well associated with a monarch is King Henry VI’s Well, Bolton in Craven (North Yorkshire). It is interesting because the King’s reputation was that of sanctity and as such any well would have pretentions to be a holy well. Indeed the local legend states that when a fugitive at Bolton Hall he asked for the owner to provide a bathing place. No spring was available and one was divined with hazel rods and where they indicated water the site was dug. The king prayed that the well may flow forever and the family may never become extinct. The site still exists and is used for a local mineral water firm!
The years of conflict between the Lancastrians and Yorkists ended at Bosworth field and here a we find King Richard’s Well, Sutton Cheney (Leicestershire). Traditionally Richard III drank from a spring that Lord Wentworth in 1813 encapsulated in large conical cairn shaped well house with an appropriate Latin inscription. Curiously both wells of course mark the losers of the battle and no wells record the victors of such conflicts. One wonders whether this records our interest in the underdog and lament for the lost. The strangest extrapolation of this is a well found in Eastwell (Kent). Here generations have pointed to a circular brick well in the estate grounds and a tomb in the derelict church and associated them with the lost son of Richard III. The Plantagenet’s Well may indeed have some basis in fact although the only evidence is the account of the legend during the building of Eastwell Manor in 1545, the landowner, Sir Thomas Moyle, was amazed to find one of his workman reading a book in Latin. Naturally curious, he decided to ask him about this ability. Thus the man informed him, that in 1485, at Bosworth Field, he was the illegitimate son of King Richard III, who had previously clandestinely acknowledged him as sole heir. The following day, fearing reprisals after Richard’s loss, the boy fled, avoiding being recognition by disguising himself as a bricklayer and thus was years later, employed in the manor’s construction. Sir Thomas, believed the man’s story, and being a Yorkist sympathiser, adopted him into his household. This story of Richard Plantagenet remained a family secret, until it was revealed in Gentleman’s Magazine, as a quotation from a letter written by Thomas Brett, of Spring Grove (near Eastwell) to a friend Dr. Warren. He had heard the story from the Earl of Winchelsea at Eastwell House about 1720. This story is further enforced by Parish records showing that on December 27th 1550 V Rychard Plantagenet was interred, the notation V being a notification for a royal personage. However, having never seen the record myself I am unsure of its validity.
The next monarch encountered in a well dedication is a surprising one perhaps. In Carshalton (Surrey), we find Anne Boleyn’s Well, which is an perplexing dedication considering her unpopularity and association with a monarch who would have seen holy wells another trapping of the papist money making machine he had excluded from his realm (although there is little evidence that Henry VIIIth had any real direct effect on holy wells as would the newly established Scottish Kirk). The legend of its formation related that when the King and Queen were out riding from Nonsuch Palace, her horse’s foot hit the ground and a spring arose. No reason for is given and it is probable that the spring was re-discovered and perhaps dedicated to St. Anne. Bedford’s Park is not far from Pygro’s Park which has an association with Henry VIII so one assumes the Queen Anne’s well is again Boleyn although I know nothing more and indeed missed it from my survey!
Unlike her mother, Elizabeth I was a popular monarch, much as the present monarch is, especially in the strongly protestant counties, hence Queen Elizabeth Wells at Rye and Winchelsea (Sussex). In the case of Rye, the spring was part of a water improvement system which provided water via a conduit system. It was so named after her visit to Rye in 1573, when she drunk the water and met the town dignitaries, or Jurats, there, before they processed into the town. Amusingly the well was also known as Dowdeswell, from O. E. dowde for a plain woman, a scold or shrew a fact which may have tickled some recusant families in the vicinity no doubt. so like many a holy well the name was changed for the monarch. Interestingly, Winchelsea’s site was and still is called St. Katherine’s Well so perhaps the monarch’s name was used to remove Catholic associations (especially considering Queen Katherine of Aragon), although St. Leonard’s well remained intact. Bisham’s Queen Elizabeth’s Well (Buckhamshire) is even associated with miraculous cures which certainly predate the monarch and perhaps her visit and taking of the waters when visiting Lady Hoby her cousin may have been the opportunity to move away from the holy well name? Queen Elizabeth also gave her name to a well in Friern Barnet (Middlesex) and Blackheath (Surrey)
Perhaps in the day when the site of the monarch was an extremely rare occasion folk memory has preserved it. This may explain King James Well Mickley (Yorkshire) whose only reason for the dedication was that he stopped to drink at it! This well does not appear to have then developed any note as a consequence. However, a spring at Cuffley (Hertfordshire) was visited by the King and developed into a minor spa called the King’s Well.
Interestingly, if England had not broken from Rome we may have seen those associated with Charles I develop in the same fashion, after all he does have churches and chapels named after him. Charles is often associated with wells, in some cases such as Carles Trough, (Leicestershire) where he is said to have watered horse here after Naseby. Ellerton’s (Staffordshire) King’s Well and Longhope (Gloucestershire) Royal Spring are both associated with the monarch.
However, stopping to drink is a common theme. A well in Appledore (Kent) is called Queen Anne’s Well because she is said to have stopped there and asked the landlord for a sip. It is possible that such associations may stem from a desire for a local land owner to support a developing spa trade, Queen Anne’s Bathhouse exists in Lullingstone (Kent), however there is no record of such an attempt at Appledore. Furthermore, it is unclear which Queen Anne is recorded at Appledore and it is possible considering the age of the brickwork in the cellar and around the well at this site that it was once St. Ann’s well. This is probably true of Lincoln’s Queen Ann’s Well, Chalvey’s Queen Ann’s Well (Buckinghamshire), Queen Anne’s Wishing Well (South Cadbury) and Blythborough’s (Suffolk) site now known as Lady Well! However of that of Chalvey, perhaps not as there is no pre-18th century record, although if it did not it soon attracted a reputation for healing and was called a spa. Interestly Queen Charlotte is also noted as being involved and as such according to the Mirror, of 1832,:
“a stone was placed there in 1785 by her illustrious consort, George III”.
An accompanying woodcut to the piece showing the stone with the royal monogram carved in the centre. In 1698 Anne of Denmark gave money to create a basin at Tunbridge wells and well was called the Queen’s well.
Of course in the next two centuries, the rise of the spas saw many mineral springs develop the patronage of the monarch such as George IV, yet despite this times had changed and the wells did not take the monarch’s name directly. By the reign of Victoria, her name was then applied to fountainheads and pumps, as old wells were filled in and channelled away amidst growing concerns for the need for clean and freely accessible water. A few sites such as the confusing named Coronation or Jubilee Well (so marked on the 1844 OS map so difficult to record which monarch and which jubilee or coronation is referred to) in Wessington (Derbyshire) buck the trend.
In summary it is interesting that despite a large number of memorable and in some case not so memorable monarchs, there is are a limited number of them associated with wells. Why? Is it due to these particular monarchs having pricked the public’s folk memory, or in some cases inherited some sort of pious notion akin to that associated with holy wells.
Wells associated with Royalty can be divided into the following categories:
a) Those drunk before a battle or whilst on the run from a battle. This could include the Battle Well Evesham (Worcestershire), with its associations with Simon de Montford is out of the scope of this blog but shows this trend, the water becoming curative.
b) Those associated with their castles, palaces, hunting lodges. But why these particular monarchs is unclear?
c) Those made by miraculous events such as that associated King Henry VIs well. It seems perhaps these sites had developed in anticipation of the eventual sanctifying of the individuals which of course never happened.
holyandhealingwells 