Forums

Posted: 11-08-2002 13:01 Post subject: st marys well & st winifreds well

for anyof you facying a bit of a tour may I recomend st marys well near cardiff best to come in the winter as it drys up in the summer, pm me if you want info on how to get to it, it's near to cosmeston lakes country park and st marys well bay so might make a nice day trip for cardiffians.

The best example of a holy well south of scotland however is st Winifreds well in Holywell north wales. where I am revisiting next week for my hols. It is to my knolage the only well in the country whose origanal srine buildings survived Henry the 8th's reformation distruction of relics and sites (they hold a service of dedication for st winifreds finger every sunday as well).
The story of st winifred go's like this: evil prince trys to rape her, she's having none of it so evil prince chops her head off with his blade there and then and he runs off. st beuno runns to the place where it happened and reataches his neices head in front of a crowd of villagers who had gathered at the site out of morbid curiosity, she comes back to life and a spring springs up where her head had been, winifred becomes a nun and patron saint of wales untill supercesded by david. evil prince dies in some unimaginably horrible way (hoorah!).
Thats the story so make of it what you will.
Many miricale cures have been atributed to the well giving it the nickname "the lourdes of britain" and visions of st winifred have been seen there so if you ever get the chance to visit (and I can strongly recomed it) ask the nun in the gift shop or the nuns in the retreat house just up the hill about it, they have tons of storys about the well and are happy to tell them:D

Posted: 11-08-2002 15:42 Post subject: Chalice well Glastonbury

The Chalice Well and gardens at Glastonbury are definitely worth visiting - the gardens are incredibly peaceful and a great place to calm down and think . The actual spring is also known as the blood spring or the red spring because it has a heavy load of iron salts - the water tastes like blood! The well , I believe , still has its original ( roman ? ) stone wellhouse which has been completely buried so the well is accessed through what was the roof but appears to be at ground level . It has a lovely heavy wood lid bound with iron in a design by Frederick Bligh Bond of the vesica pisces ( overlapping circles within a larger circle bisected by a symbolic spear ) . I don't know about physical healing but it is a wonderful place to find peace .
There is a similar spring on the moors nearby , again volcanic in origin but this time it is yellow and sulphurous ( and stinky ) and therefore probably genuinely good for skin conditions . It has a holy sort of feel to it , with a carved surround , but I will have to research further .

Posted: 12-08-2002 09:54 Post subject:

There's another well in North Wales on the Llyn peninsula. It's known as St Gybi's well (Ffynnon Gybi). There are some ruins there and quite a bit of information about the site. Basically you need to spend a couple of nights sleeping in the adjacent house (no roof on it now so take a tent) and take various treatments of well water and sea water.

It's signposted from the A499 Caernarvon to Pwffheli road.

Map

Posted: 10-01-2004 21:24 Post subject: 'lost' Welsh holy well

Maybe 5 years ago, there was a news story that an apparently lost Holy well in a remote part of a remote Welsh forest had been rediscovered. I think it was some archaeologists flying over in a helicopter who spotted it while looking for something else. When they went investigate it... no mean feat as I recall, it was miles from road through dense forest, they found the well and by it an old coffee mug with fresh flowers in it.

Anyone remember this? I can't find anything on't tinternet because my search parameters are a bit too general, I think.

Posted: 10-01-2004 21:33 Post subject:

Yes, I remember it and I've found one reference here, in the Grauniad: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,252903,00.html

Quote:
Ms Earwood only found the well by spotting a clearing in the plantation in an aerial photograph. It took her hours to reach it by scrambling down into a steep valley, following the bank of a stream until a place where it is shallow enough to ford, up the opposite slope of the mountain, and through dense rows of Sitka spruce.
But somebody had been there before her: beside the well there was a brown Denby mug without a handle, holding a posy of flowers.

Posted: 10-01-2004 22:47 Post subject:

BRILLIANT! That's it... many thanks! Very Happy

Posted: 10-01-2004 22:56 Post subject:

BRILLIANT! That's it... many thanks! Very Happy

Posted: 10-01-2004 22:57 Post subject:

I bet the person who left the flowers would not be happy to hear of it's discovery.

Posted: 11-01-2004 01:29 Post subject:

There are holy wells everywhere, dunno if anyone has bothered trying to catalogue them all except maybe in Cornwall, you can get books on the wells there, there are/were four or five in this (small) town alone, you could live here twenty years and not know about them all unless you did some research.

Posted: 11-01-2004 12:02 Post subject:

IIRC, I think several surveys of holy and eye wells have been made in various parts of the UK - altho' I think these were done on an amateur basis. Can't remember any specifics off of the top of my head tho'. (I think someone did a survey for Somerset, as I remember seeing a small booklet on such stuff about 10 years ago - I think this was at the library in Bruton).

Posted: 11-01-2004 12:17 Post subject:

There's reputedly a mediaeval holy well somewhere in Delamere Forest in Cheshire, 'lost' for years now. I've never seen it on my ramblings there but I bet someone knows where it is!

(There was a horrible murder there a few years ago. Someone stretched rope across a path between two trees and a bloke out mountain-biking with his kids rode into it, was flung off and died on the spot. I don't think anyone's been caught for it. There's also an accident blackspot nearby on the main road.)

Posted: 11-01-2004 14:31 Post subject:

I've found this to be a fantastic little resource for finding 'Holy' wells around the country;-

http://www.bath.ac.uk/lispring/sourcearchive/cntsfrst.htm#top

(And there're plenty in Yorkshire for you to go look at Zygmunt!)

Posted: 14-01-2004 18:37 Post subject:

What exactly is a "Holy Well" anyway? We don't have such a thing in America (to my knowledge). On an unrelated note, I've decided to start collecting bits of UK folklore and forteana as I intend to visit there sometime in the near future.

Posted: 14-01-2004 21:37 Post subject:

is that bits of data or bits of things Sertile?

there's a thread somewhere on cabinets of curiosities somewhere if it's the latter.

Kath

Posted: 14-01-2004 23:16 Post subject:

Information, but thanks anyway.