Category Archives: Lincolnshire
A Lincolnshire field trip – the Holy wells of Castle Bytham
The name Holy well can often be seen as evidence of an ancient site. The Holywell parish is the only such place-name in Lincolnshire and many years back I had the opportunity to examine the grounds of the delightful Holywell Hall with its now private chapel. J C Walter in their 1887 ‘Holy wells’ in the Lincoln Diocesan Magazine describes it as:
“a well standing in a garden, within a few paces of a lake, yet entirely unaffected by it, for when the lake was cleaned out a few years ago, the well remained at its usual height.”
Wild notes in their 1871 The history of Castle Bytham: its ancient fortress and manor, its feudal lords, Vaudey Abbey, &c., &c notes:
“Local tradition tells us that near this well there was formerly a religious house, that holy women lived here, and that by bathing eyes of the blind in its waters, sight was restored… an ancient well still exists.”
In the book the author gives an interesting argument over the name attached to the well. He notes:
“In Bredestorp was a well, which for some reason or other became notorious, and was known in conjunction with a personal name, then represented by the dissyllable Ade. Ade is a Saxon prefix which enters into the composition of female names, and signifies noble, as Adeleve noble wife ; Adelfleda, &c. Hele (in Helewell) is the representative of the Anglo-Saxon verb hielariy to cure. We thus discover in these names the probable groundwork of every part of the local tradition connected with the holy well.”
This would appear to be Bredestorp was the earlier name of the Parish, but it was also called Adewell. Thus, it is surmised that it was associated with the Saxon Ade who presumably was some holy women who founded the religious house but unlike other who may become canonised has been largely forgotten. Ekwall in their 1960 Placenames of Lincolnshire notes that the site derives from O.E hæl for ‘healing’ rather than O.E. halig for ‘holy’.
Although the spring-name Holy Well first appears on the 1887 Ordnance survey map so the current well could be a replacement. However, the parish was called Helewell at least under Henry III However, E Gutch, and M Peacock in their 1908 Country Folklore Vol. VI: Folklore of Lincolnshire found stated that they:
“a “holy well” encased with stone of a polygonal form, shaded by yew trees and within the precincts of the burial-ground”
This spring itself appears dry, but the structure a polygonal stone basin still stands. There are two holy wells here in fact. Antiquarius Rusticus 1926–7 in Some Lincolnshire holy wells: I, in Lincolnshire notes and queries states an another site called St. Winifred’s Well, relating that the springs constant action caused the church to be moved. And indeed the present church is not a medieval one giving some credence to this idea.
Closer to the river is another circular well, this time full of water which may be St. Winifred’s Well, described above, although as this is clearly full may the one referred to by Walter (1887).
Interestingly Ian Thompson in his 1998 Lincolnshire wells and springs notes the main site as St Winifred’s Well at Holywell near Castle Bytham suggesting that there might have been some confusion over the exact site. It is also worth noting that there is an Angel Wells farm in the parish, no springs or wells are recorded in the area and it is a dedication unknown elsewhere which suggests it may not record a holy well but possibly derives from Angles suggesting the Saxon foundation of the Parish
Taken and amended from R. B. Parish Holy wells and healing springs of Lincolnshire.
The curious case of the dragon, the sunken church and the petrifying spring – the Dragonbury Dragon
It may seem an odd site to describe in a blog about holy and healing wells and springs, but this natural feature is a curious by-product of a possibly a significant spring. 
This dragon is a natural feature formed by the build up of limestone from a spring. Two local traditions give the reason for its existence one that a local wizard turned a dragon to stone and another bizarrely that it is the top of a church which sank into the ground with its congregation still within. The earliest reference to the dragon is by the antiquarian Abraham de la Pryme (1671–1704), who visiting in July 1696 said in his diary:
“The 18th instant, being Saturday, I went to see a place, between Sanclif and Conisby, called the Sunken Church, the tradition concerning which says that there was a church there formerly, but that it sunk in the ground with all the people in it, in the times of popery. But I found it to be only a fable, for that which they shew to be the walls thereof, yet standing, is most manifestly nothing but a natural rock, which lifts itself out of the ground about two yards high, in a continued line, like the wall of a church, etc.”
The sunken church legend is interesting and obviously reveals more indeed a footnote in Pryme’s diary written by Charles Jackson (1809–1882) in 1870, says:
“Sunken Church at Sancliff (sic) yet exists, and is known by that name. The story is that the church and the whole congregation were swallowed up by the earth, but that on one day in the year (the anniversary, it is believed, of that on which the church went down), if one goes early in the morning he may hear the bells ring for Mass. The legend cannot be accounted for. A similar tale exists, I understand, about various other places in Britain and Germany. There has clearly been no church here. The stone is certainly natural. It is not so high now as Pryme reports. The earth has probably washed down the hill and raised the ground about it. There are some marks or furrows on it, which may be very rude carvings, but this is doubtful. As large stones are a rarity thereabouts, and as this is visible at a considerable distance, it may have had heathen rites connected with it, which have given a weird memory to the spot.”
In 1900, Henry Preston. F.G.S. (1852–1940), one of the founders of Grantham Museum, wrote :
“In a field on Sawcliffe Farm, in the parish of Roxby-cum-Risby, North Lincolnshire, there is a deposit of uncommon character and singular beauty. It is particularly interesting to the lover of natural objects. Locally it is known as the “Sunken Church”. An ancient tradition informs us that it was a church attached to one of the monasteries, and was buried by a landslip; or, according to Abraham de la Pryme, the Yorkshire antiquary, who visited it in 1696, the tradition is that the church sunk in the ground, with all the people in it, in the times of Popery.”
It would be more likely that the concept of a church is more ancient that the Christian interpretation and it is probably a record of pagan practices at the site. Indeed it is interesting that at the ‘head’ of the dragon is natural basin, akin to a bullaun often seen in Ireland associated with holy wells, which may suggest religious rituals happened there and indeed there is also a channel which runs down from the basin. One immediately thinks of libations which could be poured into lit which would flow down the dragon. Certainly, Harold Dudley in his 1931 The history and antiquities of the Scunthorpe and Frodingham district thought so
“Standing within a short distance of a notable prehistoric settlement, this isolated rock may well have been the object of heathen veneration and the scene of early worship.”
Ian Thompson in his 1999 Lincolnshire springs and wells that:
“It was even said that if you went to the place on the anniversary of its disappearance you would hear the bell ringing for Mass!”
What is interesting is that the site was never Christian, as a settlement it continued through the Roman period and possibly into Saxon times when it apparently disappeard. Thompson suggests that:
“The most likely explanation for the evacuation of the site c.700 A.D. is that it was too powerfully pagan. Most pagan sites could be ritually cleansed and their altars destroyed, but there was no way of destroying the dragon. Instead the spot seems to have been shunned, at first perhaps with horror, and later no doubt as a place of ill-omen. It is easy to see how, in the aftermath of the Reformation, a legend associating the site with an old and distrusted religion might come to be re-interpreted in terms of ‘popery’, and its cultic centrepiece explained as a sunken `Romish’ church.”
Interesting, local landowner, Lady Winifride Elwes, a noted Catholic, decided when she built the cottages nearby in 1912 chose the name Dragonby in honour of the dragon when the area was resettled for iron working. Sadly, the days of the dragon are numbered as Ian Thompson records:
“Dragonby subsequently acquired a drift-mine and water had to be pumped from the area in massive quantities to keep the galleries dry. Mining operations ceased in 1981 but pumping continues for health and safety reasons and the spring no longer flows. Some indication of the drastic effects of water extraction can be gauged from the existence, 50 yards downhill, of a large depression in the landscape. It used to be a brimming pond.”
This has obviously dried up the spring and those made it more vulnerable, he adds:
“I have been paying friendly visits to the dragon for most of my life and am sad to see, each time I come, some further deterioration in his shape and texture. No doubt acid rain and chemical vapour are the chief culprits for 40 years ago he was still in a good state of preservation, looking much as he must have looked when a group of Iron Age migrants first viewed him with awe, and decided to adopt him as their tribal god.”
Despite what Ian Thompson states the site is still a remarkable and unique one and deserves to be better known.
Holy and healing springs of Stamford, Lincolnshire
Being a noted aged town Stamford claims its fair share of ancient wells. A number of wells appear to share dedications with a nearby church and so it is unclear whether the names were obtained as a consequence of their proximity, all have been lost.. A map of the town by John Speed, 1611 features ‘S. Peter’s Well and S. Maryes Well. Butcher’ 1647 Survey and Antiquitie of the Towne of Stamford however is the main source who notes three wells: St. George’s Well, St. Clement’s Well and All Hallowes Well. There is a St. John’s Well associated with St. John’s Church.
More is noted of St. Thomas’s Well, of which Francis Peck in his 1727 History of Stanford repeats a story, originally told to him by his father, about Samuel Wallace, a crippled shoemaker of Stamford. Wallace was instructed on how to cure his sickness by a strange old man who mysteriously came and went on Whitsunday 1659, and who refused an offer of food, saying:
‘that he almost never drank anything but water, and that the water he drank was sometimes the water of St. Thomas’s well. That well, said my father, was the well you know in such a place. I heard him describe the place, but being then very young, can only remember it was somewhere without Stanford on the east, not far from the Uffington road. I have since enquired of several persons, but they can none of them tell of any such well’.
A church in Stamford was dedicated to St Thomas. There are springs found at TF 054 072, TF 054 072 and TF 058 071 along the footpath and disused Welland canal so one of these could be the likely contender.
Stamford’s Spa or Iron Well (TF 018 060) is a delightful and little known survival, so named because of its chalybeate waters. It was according to Thompson (1914) an open spring until 1864 when the Mayor of Stamford covered it with its present structure which is grade II listed. This is a circular stone onion shaped cupola about four feet high and sixteen feet round, which has on it the inscription ‘John Paradise Esquire Mayor 1864.’
Beeby Thompson’s 1914 Peculiarities of springs and wells of Northamptonshire notes that the spring was beneficial for skin diseases and eye problems and people used to fetch water to use in their houses, but today appears little regarded. Mrs Gutch and Mabel Peacock, Examples of printed folklore concerning Lincolnshire, Folklore Society, County Folklore Vol V, 1908 state:
“Tradition recounts that a religious house inhabited by pious women once stood near this holy well, and that its waters then had the power of restoring sight to the blind. It is still a wishing well. You wish, and drop a pin into it.”
It is curious that they call it a holy well so it maybe they are describing one of the former sites especially as it is called the Spa on old maps. Interestingly, Bath house can be found not far from the Iron Well with its name painted on the front wall. Built in 1923 it is Gothic building of two storeys with two pinnacles and central carved pinnacles and gothic glazed windows in chamfered reveals. Although now a private residence it apparently still retains its baths apparently, but I was unable to ascertain this. Incidentally there is another Bath house in Burleigh Park although this is strictly speaking in Northamptonshire and beyond this volume. Burleigh Park also boasted a chalybeate spring or Spa. Thomas Short’s 1734 Short The Natural Experimental, and Medicinal History of the Mineral Waters of Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, and Yorkshire, only makes passing note of it stating that it was a ‘product of iron stone’ and Thompson (1914) found no one in the locale who could verify a location and maybe it is linked to the above.
Various references in the 14th century note a Sevenwells which is perhaps significant. It was granted to the nuns of St. Michael but details are not forthcoming where it was.
Alkborough’s enigmatic Kell Well
Sometimes there is a site which should be a holy well and is certainly significant but despite being recorded as a holy well by some authorities I cannot find any support for this view. The first record of the site is from Abraham de la Pryme, following his visit in 1697 wrote in his diaries:
“This day I was at a place called Kell Well, near Alkburrow, where I got a great many pretty stones, being a kind of the astroites or starr-stones. There is many of them also at Whitten, on the cliffs, and in Coalby beck. The country people have a Strange name for them, and call them kestles and postles, which somewhat sounds like Christ and his Apostles.'”
Despite the lack of firm records of its age. The surrounding land has certainly been occupied for millennia. At Kell Well there have also been found Neolithic flint arrowheads and a stone axe head, flint arrowheads and other finds and as such is the oldest prehistoric remains in a village brimming with fascinating relics. In the grounds of nearby Walcot Hall was found a Bronze Age beaker and a pot of Roman coins suggesting a Romano-British settlement there. Indeed, a geophysical survey of Walcot Hall in 2003 did show the remains of a Romano-British ladder settlement.
Other remains linked to the local Iron Age tribe Corieltauvi who became Roman civitas and 1st to 4th A.D century pottery shreds have been found in fields south of Countess Close A view exposed in William Stukeley’s Itinerarium Curiosum; Or, An Account of the Antiquities, and Remarkable Curiosities in Nature Or Art, Observed in Travels Through Great Britain (1776) which suggests that Alkborough’s name comes from this Roman settlement deriving from Aquis such as Buxton’s Aquis arnemetia. Now this might suggest that there was a Roman cult here associated with the spring (either this or the Low wells near the church). However, the agreed origin is from personal name Aluca or Alca and Old English berg referring to a hill such as ‘Alca’s hill’. Indeed the earliest record is in the Domesday book as Alchebarge.
Trimmer and Andrew Guide and Handbook to Winteringham & District (1912) note that:
“The waters of the spring were thought to have petrifying qualities but these seem to be lost; the water is certainly chalybeate, and most people who visit the well..(make a wish) after drinking the water.”
There is some confusion here because it is certainly still petrifying and there is no sign of chalybeate iron rich waters. It is also confusing whether it refers to to wishing as a custom or just a reflex! However, one piece of folklore which is perhaps significant. It is said that by drinking its water it would keep the drinker in the village for the rest of their life. This folklore motif is perhaps records of a ritual at the well to confirm loyalty. Considering that the name of the well derives from O.N kell or keld for ‘spring’ perhaps from the Saxon settlement time. Lincolnshire is poorly recorded in their folklore so sadly there is probably more about it we don’t know.
The present stone work appears to be fairly modern but the action of calcification is already apparent and the flow considerable. Small fossilised sections can be found in the stream and it is evident from this ebay site that people still associate the site with those ancient crinoids.
Today walking along the cliff path, through the woods and down towards the spring one can imagine the generations which have come here to venerate the spring and its hard water.
Ten Year anniversary – My top ten holy and healing wells sites from 10 years of blogging
In this article to celebrate 10 years of blogging I am selecting 10 of the best sites I have discovered and detailed since I had begun blogging on the topic
The Monk’s Well, Southam – Nothing can prepare you for what I could describe the most unusual of all holy wells. Hidden deep in the landscape and under a nondescript metal cover a deep shaft of squared stone plunges deep into the ground to a small well chamber below.
‘St Helen’s Well’, my house! I had to include this one as it is a possible holy well under my own house. Read how I discovered the spring and how the name of the house is suggestive of an ancient and lost St Helen’s Well
St. Anne’s Well, Brough. Often a name of a ‘unknown’ well on a map leads the explorer to discover a boggy hole overgrown and difficult to image its importance. Here a few miles out of Buxton and in the shadow of a Roman fort is a well which appears have been missed by many researchers but well built and likely to be very significant,
Lady’s Well, Mansfield. This time a site which all authorities had recorded had been lost for good and attempts by ‘English heritage’ failed to find it. A bit of local field work and contacting local people and low and behold one can find the best preserved Nottinghamshire holy well…hopefully news of a residential development on the site will not result in its final demise!
Lady’s Well, Wombourne. In this case a site which is well recorded but appeared to have disappeared off maps and thus thought to have gone. A bit of looking at older maps and field work revealed not only a magically placed site but a remarkable example of a natural spring carefully improved by past generations to create sometime quite evocative.
St Peter’s Well, Peterchurch. A slightly different affair this one. When I first visited in the 1990s it was a forlorn site with the bath filled in with concrete and all that could be seen was the head through which the water once flowed (and had been tanked). Roll forward 30 odd years and community action had restored the site wonderfully back to what it first looked like – a bit of a triumph.
Holiwell, Odell. Bedfordshire is a county not fully explored by holy well researchers and one I am slowly working through. This site again I had found an old photo and worked out its location as a likely place. Expecting to be wrong or find the site gone I was amazed to find it almost exactly as it was in the photo…well almost.
St Mary’s Well, Rhuddlan. I cannot claim to have discovered this as its quite prominent at the front of the stately house which is Bodrhyddan Hall but I didnt expect to find such a splendid building over the spring.
St Chad’s Well, Brettenham. It is probably not a St Chad’s well not an estate spring made into a folly holy well. Nevertheless a fascinating site.
St Christopher’s Well, Denton. Again another grotto and is an overgrown wilderness that appeared to lay unvisited for many years…it still had old pre decimal coins in it.
Mysterious creatures of springs and wells – Phantom Black dogs
A phantom black dog usually much larger than an actual dog, often said to be the size of a calf, with glowing red eyes is a folklore standard being recorded from across the country. Whether they be called Black Shuck, Barguest, Gytrash, Trasher, Padifoot or many other names often there is an association with water. As a brief introduction I have again attempted to included as many as I have uncovered.
It Lincolnshire often they are associated with bridges such as Brigg, Willingham (Till bridge) or banks of streams. At Kirton, there is a black dog was reported as living in a hole in the stream bank near this Belle Hole farm. Ponds were often associated with it such as the fish pond in Blyborough Lincolnshire. Rudkin in her 1937 Lincolnshire folk-lore notes a site called Bonny Well in Sturton upon Stow Lincolnshire which was an unfailing supply even in the great drought of 1860. One assumes that the site derived from O.Fr bonne for ‘good’. The site in the 1930s was a pond down Bonnywells Lane and was associated with a number of pieces of folklore; that it was haunted by a black dog and sow and litter of pigs which appeared on Hallowe’en. In the same county, Hibaldstow’s Bubbling Tom had a black dog protect it. Edward Bogg’s 1904 Lower Wharfeland, the Old City of York and the Ainsty, James tells how near St. Helen’s Well, Thorpe Arch:
“padfoots and barguests…..which on dark nights kept its vigil”
In Elizabeth Southwart’s 1923 book on Bronte Moors and Villages: From Thornton to Haworth, she talks about Bloody tongue at Jim Craven’s Well, Yorkshire:
“The Bloody-tongue was a great dog, with staring red eyes, a tail as big as the branch of a tree, and a lolling tongue that dripped blood. When he drank from the beck the water ran red right past the bridge, and away down—down—nearly to Bradford town. As soon as it was quite dark he would lope up the narrow flagged causeway to the cottage at the top of Bent Ing on the north side, give one deep bark, then the woman who lived there would come out and feed him. What he ate we never knew, but I can bear testimony to the delicious taste of the toffee she made.”
She relates one time:
“One Saturday a girl who lived at Headley came to a birthday party in the village, and was persuaded to stay to the end by her friends, who promised to see her ‘a-gaiterds’ if she would. As soon as the party was over the brave little group started out. But when they reached the end of the passage which leads to the fields, and gazed into the black well, at the bottom of which lurked the Bloody-tongue, one of them suggested that Mary should go alone, and they would wait there to see if anything happened to her.
“Mary was reluctant, but had no choice in the matter, for go home she must. They waited, according to promise, listening to her footsteps on the path, and occasionally shouting into the darkness:
““Are you all right, Mary?”
““Ay!” would come the response.
“And well was it for Mary that the Gytrash had business elsewhere that night, for her friends confess now that at the first sound of a scream they would have fled back to lights and home.”
The author continues:
“We wonder sometimes if the Bloody-tongue were not better than his reputation, for he lived there many years and there was never a single case known of man, woman or child who got a bite from his teeth, or a scratch from his claws. Now he is gone, nobody knows whither, though there have been rumours that he has been seen wandering disconsolately along Egypt Road, whimpering quietly to himself, creeping into the shadows when a human being approached, and, when a lantern was flashed on him, giving one sad, reproachful glance from his red eyes before he vanished from sight.”
In Redbrook, Gwent, Wales, at Swan Pool after the crying of a baby and then the appearance of a women holding a baby, a large black dog appears circles the pool and heads off a to kiln. In the Highlands a pool containing treasure is guarded by a hound with two heads and it is said to have haunted a man who drained the pool and discovered the treasure. He soon returned it! A moat near Diamor County Meath is said to contain a nine kegs of gold protected by a large black and white spotted dog. One could collect the gold if the dog was stabbed three times on the white spot. Another white dog is found, described as the size of a bullock, at Bath Slough Burgh in Suffolk.
Water appears also to be a place of confinement. At Dean Combe waterfalls in Devon the ghost of local weaver was banished by a local vicar and when he turned into a great black dog was taken to a pool by the waterfall. Here it was told that it could only concern people once it had emptied all the water using a cracked shell! At Beetham a local vicar banished a spirit called Cappel which manifested itself as a dog into the river Bela in the 1820s. Equally one wonders if the account associated with St Eustace’s Well, Wye Kent has more significance:
‘swollen up as it were by dropsy’ came to a priest, whom upon seeing her urged her to go the spring. This she did and no sooner had the women drunk the holy water, she recovered but vomited forth a pair of black toads, growing into black dogs, then black asses! The woman surprised vented her anger against these manifestations and the priest intervened, sprinkling the holy water on ‘they flew up into the air and vanished, leaving no traces of their foulness.’
Mysterious creatures of springs and wells – phantoms horses and coaches!
A possibly un-investigated sub-genre associated with holy wells and varied water bodies are the coach and horse phantom. The phenomena is wide spread. And in lieu of a longer elaboration I thought I’d introduce some examples here and please feel free to add other examples in the comments. The furthest south one I have found is association with the Trent Barrow Spring, in Dorset Marianne Daccombe in her 1935 Dorset Up Along and Down Along states:
“One dark and stormy night a coach, horses, driver and passengers plunged into this pit and disappeared, leaving no trace behind. But passers-by along the road may still hear, in stormy weather, the sound of galloping horses and wailing voices borne by them on the wind”.
However, the majority appear to be in the eastern side of England which is not surprising as these were and in some cases are boggy, desolate marshland areas which clearly were treacherous in olden times.
In Lincolnshire, the Brant Broughton Quakers (1977) note a site in their history of the village. This was found on the corner near the allotments on Clay road was a deep pond called Holy well pond or All well or Allwells. They note that
it was haunted by a coach and horses which plunged into its waters. I was informed by Mrs Lyon, the church warden that the pond was filled in at least before the writing of the above book.
In Lincolnshire, most noted site is Madam’s Well or Ma’am’s Well. Wild (1901) notes that this was a blow hole which Charles Hope’s 1893 Legendary lore of Holy wells describes as a deep circular pit, the water of which rises to the level of the surface, but never overflows and such it is considered bottomless by the superstitious. Rev John Wild’s 1901 book on Tetney states that they were connected to the Antipodes, and relates the story which gave the site its name:
“In one of these ponds a legend relates how a great lady together with her coach and four was swallowed bodily and never seen again. It is yet called Madam’s blowhole”
Wild (1901) also tells how:
“a dark object was seen which was found to be a man’s hat…when the man was retrieved belonging to it….my horse and gig are down below.”
Norfolk has the greatest amount. Near Thetford a coach and four went off the road and all the occupants were drowned in Balor’s Pit on Caddor’s Hill, which they now haunt. On the right-hand side of the road from Thetford, just before reaching Swaffham, is a place called Bride’s Pit, after a fathomless pool once to be seen there. The name was actually a corruption of Bird’s Pit, but tradition says that a couple returning home from their wedding in a horse drawn coach plunged into the pond one dark night, and the bride was drowned. An alternative origin is that it may be a memory of the Celtic Goddess, Brede or the early saint St Bride.
The picturesquely named Lily Pit was found on the main road from Gorleston to Beccles (A143), hides a more ominous tradition, that it was haunted by a phantom. The story states that at midnight a phantom pony and trap used to thunder along the road and disappear into the water. What this phantom is confusingly differs! One tradition states the phantom was a mail-coach missed the road one night and careered into the pit, vanishing forever. This may be a man named James Keable who lost in the fog fell into the pool in 1888 his body never being recovered. Or a farm-hand eloped with his master’s daughter, who fell into the pool and drowned. He so racked with guilt later hung himself on a nearby tree. This may be the a man from Gorleston who went mad after his only daughter was lost in the pool, and so hung himself from an oak tree which stood there into the 1930s. There is an account in this Youtube video.
Mysterious creatures of wells and springs – Nanny Rutt
Sometimes mysterious creatures at wells and springs have mysterious origins and perhaps one of the most mysterious is Nanny Rutt, who is associated with an artesian well in Math Wood near Bourne, Lincolnshire.
The legend
The story tells of a young girl who arranges to meet her lover in the wood and sets out early in the evening and meets an old woman wrapped in a shawl which obscures her face. She warns of the dangers of the wood at night as well as why she should not elope without knowledge of her parents. She ignores this advice and reaches the well where she has arranged to meet her lover. Waiting for a long time she realises her lover is not going to come and it has become very late. With tears in her eyes she becomes hopelessly lost and stumbles upon an overgrown stone house in a clearing and there in its doorway is the old woman who’s face is revealed it the moonlight to be hideous. As the girl runs, the old woman’s shadow paralyses her and her throat becomes so dry she is unable to scream and is never seen again.
Math Wood adorned with bluebells – but no well!!
How old is it?
An interesting legend, who apart from the name of the Old women is very modern and resembles an ‘urban legend’. What is unclear is why there is a well included. Does this suggest that at some point it had a greater role? Did Nanny Rutt haunt the well? Was she another Jenny Greenteeth? Did the girl actually drown in the well?
Its origin is equally mysterious, neither the authors Eliza Gutch and Mabel Peacock in their Examples of Printed Folk-Lore Concerning Lincolnshire, Volume 5 or Ethel Rudkin in her Lincolnshire folklore , both very thorough folklore collectors in the turn of the last century
According to the Wikipedia entry, the earliest reference is 1920s, but the name Rutt is possibly very old deriving O.F rut the same origin as Latin rugitus both meaning ‘sexual drive’ and perhaps suggest a greater date. The contributor notes:
“It may be possible to suggest an explanation for the story of the disappearance. Perhaps at some date a girl took her developing sexuality into Math wood, met someone who complemented it and was soon taken off to a home for un-married mothers never to return to Northorpe. An explanation was required for the other young people and at a time of reticence about sexuality, Nanny Rutt was invented. If this happened when the use of the French language in England was remembered, the story is medieval. Nanny Rutt could also be based on a real woman who once lived in the wood”
Rutt could also reference rutting or a goat both again very sexualised! Nanny is a common name for a fairy character but equally for someone who might offer baby sitting!
Although the woods still exist I could find any evidence of a well on the 1880 O/S or current map, and according to my correspondence with local historian Rex Needle, he believed the whole story is made up, but when, why and by who and more importantly why include a well, name it after the main character, but do not explain why. In all it is a very confused story. Even more confusing is that since including the well in my work on Holy wells and healing springs of Lincolnshire the well is included in a geocache! Does it exist then?
Mysterious creatures of wells and springs: Jenny Greenteeth
One of the frequently encountered mysterious creatures near springs and wells, as well as other bodies is called Jenny Greenteeth. In an article in the Transactions and proceedings of the American Philological Association in 1895, Charles P.G. Scott notes in the Devil and his imps remarks:
“Jenny Green-teeth, in the vernacular Jinny Green-teeth, is the pretty name of a female goblin who inhabits wells or ponds.”
The name Jinny Green-Teeth is recorded in the Folk-speech of South Cheshire (1887) and A Glossary of Words Used in the County of Chester (1886) stating that:
“Children are often deterred from approaching such places [as wells or ponds] by the threat that “Jinny Green-Teeth will have them.”
Edwin Waugh notes in 1857 Sketches of Lancashire life and localities
“ lurking in the streams and pools, like ‘Green-Teeth,’ and ‘Jenny Long Arms,’ waiting, with skinny claws and secret dart, for an opportunity to clutch the unwary wanderer upon the bank into the water.”
Often description is given of this goblin and it appears to be restricted to the west of the country, with references made in the Notes and queries around Manchester, Birmingham and as far east as Shropshire. Roy Vickery in a piece on his excellent Plant-Lore blog reports an account from Bebington Merseyside in the 1980s:
“Although Jenny Greenteeth was usually unseen, in about 1920 the bogey which inhabited two pools beside Moss Pitts Lane in Fazakerley, ‘had pale green skin, green teeth, very long green locks of hair, long green fingers with long nails, and she was very thin with pointed chin and very big eyes.”
Moreover it is possible that in Lincolnshire the same goblin is encountered as Jenny Hearn, Hurn or Yonde. This name is found associated with a bend of the Trent at Owston Ferry was haunted by Jenny Hearn or Hurn or Jenny Yonde. Unlike Jenny Greenteeth the creature is described. In Lincolnshire folklore Ethel Rudkin reports:
“The pygmy propels the dish rapidly across the stream by means of a minute pair of oars, the size of teaspoons. It is said, that having reached shore this being crosses the road and proceeds to browse in the field. ‘Or again it is said that a ‘thing’ is known to come crawling out of the water, having large eyes, and long hair, and tusks a walrus. It goes into the fields to feed. The river bank here curves in the shape of a horse-shoe, consequently a short-cut footpath has been used for years to counteract this bend.”
A possible ancient origin of this creature is suggested by another Lincolnshire location: Jenny Stanny Well a site has appeared to have passed through a number of name changes. Abraham de la Pryme discussed it in his 1680 discussion of Lincolnshire described the well as Julian’s Stony Well and now it is called Stanniwell. The name is suggestive of a Roman heritage.
Here interestingly, the name Jenny Stanny well has been supported by the suggestion that the site is haunted by a ghost presumably of that girl who carries her head under her arm. She is said to have drowned in the water. Is this a confusion of the Jenny Greenteeth tradition?
Interestingly in Preston the goblin is associated with a holy well. In the anonymous 1852 piece A Prestonian, ‘Preston More than Forty Years Ago’ in the Preston Chronicle:
“Near Friargate, and not far from the houses now called Mount Pleasant, was ‘Lady well’, about which the superstitious old women used to tell strange tales of one ‘Jenny Greenteeth’, who was said to be occasionally seen riding on a broomstick, cutting wonderful capers.”
The association of drowning with Jenny Greenteeth is significant as it would seem that the folklore probably developed as a way to warn children off playing in dangerous areas of water. This being done by associating the goblin with algae and duckweed. A note in an 1820s version of Notes and queries records Jenny Greenteeth being a name for duckweed in Birmingham. In A Glossary of the Words and Phrases of Furness (North Lancashire) (1869) she is called
“Jinny-green-Teeth — green conversa on pools.
“green scum on ponds, but supposed to imply the presence of a water-sprite or “boggart”, a terror to children as they pass the pond on which the appearance is seen.”
This is emphasised by an article by A.R. Vickery, Lemna minor and Jenny Greenteeth, in Folklore 94: 247-50, 1983. whose correspondent noted:
“ I was brought up in the Upton/Crenton area of the west side of Widnes in Lancashire (now Cheshire) …It was and still is…a farming area and many of the fields contained contained pits – some of them have quite steep sides Jinny was well known to me and my contemporaries and was simply the green weed Duckweed, which covered the surface of stagnant water.”
Finally, it is interesting the correspondent also notes
“Children who strayed too close to the edge…would be warned to watch out of Jinny Greenteeth, but it was the weed itself which was believed to hold children under water. There was never any suggestion there was a witch of any kind there!”
And such does a folk tradition become diminished! However, it was a clever way to use a common plant of stagnant water to signify dangerous waters – pity it wasn’t used in 1970s Public information films – Dark and dangerous water!
In search of rag wells: The Lincolnshire rag well cluster part 2
Last month I introduced the rag wells associated with Lincolnshire we now move southwards to explore the other sites.
The Seven Springs
At the significantly named Hemswell are the seven springs apparently rise from the spring wells and one of these is dedicated to St Helen’s Well (SK 932 911). The site has an eerie but not unquiet atmosphere. The proximity of a local stone called the Devil’s pulpit may help this of course. It is a large approximately six foot high piece of sandstone under which a small spring arises. This Ian Thompson (1999) Lincolnshire Wells and Springs notes local opinion thought was St. Helen’s, he said it tasted sweeten than the other waters (a fact that I cannot testify as the spring has appeared to have almost dried up the year I went). Peter Binnall (1845) in his theories on eye wells notes that the spring wells were regarded as possessing curative powers and rags were hung on the surrounding bushes. The dedication of St Helen is an interesting one of course and just within the main area. Jeremy Harte’s 2008 English Holy Wells suggests that the name is spurious and that Ethel Rudkin (1936) Lincolnshire Folklore does not refer to it as such, however in support of the view I had no problem locally detecting the well using this name in the village (incidentally Harte makes an error referring to the springs as Aisthorpe Springs, these are clearly another site). There was supposed to be a chapel or church associated with the site, of which there is no trace or record. There was no evidence of any rags on any of the trees and the only thing hanging was a rope for a tyre swing!
Not far away and still surviving are the Aisthorpe springs (SK 956 899) a curative spring and a rag well, despite what Thompson (1999) notes is not now incorporated into a sewage farm, although this is nearby. The spring arises with some force near by the footpath which passes towards the sewage farm and has a separate flow from that of the plant. The spring flows from a pipe beneath some thorn bushes, sadly without any sign of rags.
To the east is Holton cum Beckering were to the east of Holton Hall was a Rag Well according to Lincolnshire Notes and Queries which was said to have had some medicinal qualities, however recent correspondence with local vicar has shown that there is now no local knowledge of this well. The only evidence was a local name for a field to the south of the town known as Well Walk. There is a spring fed pool in churchyard but no traditions are given concerning this. It is possible perhaps that this is the same site as the Wishing Well at Nettleton.
Here at Nettleton, the Wishing well which is records as being half mile from church, east of the grange on land belonging to Holton Park hence the possible confusion with above. Eliza Gutch and Mabel Peacock (1908) Lincolnshire County Folklore note that:
“It was famous for its curative virtues, and thither many of the afflicted, until very recently, if not now, were wont to make a pilgrimage. A thorn tree grew over the well, which used to be covered with votive offerings, chiefly bits of rag, the understood condition to any benefit being that whoever partook of the water should ‘leave something.’ The thorn tree, however, is now cut down.”
Again no local people could determine the existence of this site and nothing is marked on maps.
Kingerby Spa (TF 045 914) whose name first appears in 1824 as the site of a Chalybeate spring might seem an unusual place for a rag well but it is an old site. In Lincolnshire notes and queries state that large numbers of coins dating back to Elizabeth I, were dredged from the pool. Records tell that in 1900, pins and coins were found nearby, and the thorn rags were full of rags. Mr Wilkinson states that it became popular in Victorian times as a place to go for the healing waters and he had seen a photo of the spring with strips of cloth fastened to the bushes surrounding the spring but could not locate it. He believed it fell out of popularity after the turn of the century, and suggested that the landowner was against people tramping over his land to reach it. However, as late as the 1990s, that the then owner was thinking of selling the waters. Mr. Wilkinson also noted that last time he saw the spa it resembled a pipe discharging into a dyke. This is at variance to Pastscape, which notes that the site consists of a small oval shaped isolated pool which has three courses of narrow brickwork forming a semi-circular rim with another brick course and a coping stone set into the side of the hollow suggesting that was a well house. Despite appearing to exist as a small pool on both the current O/S and Google maps; recent field work failed to reveal it. The site would appear to have either dried up or purposely filled in. Field train channels were nearby. This was despite being described on the parish map outside the church, although interestingly this revealed itself to be in another location to that noted on the map so maybe I was pixy led.
The last traditional site is the chalybeate Blind Well (TF 085 208) on the edge to Bourne Wood is the furthest south rag well. However, there are no signs of rags now. Its water was used to cure eye complaints and sold in Bourne Market. It is now rather neglected being rather weed filled and untidy surrounded by a rather ugly wooden frame.
Thus completes the traditional rag wells but as I have eluded to before what is interesting is the site called Lud’s Well (TF 176 937) at Stainton Le Vale. The evocative site is a spring which arises in a small cave like structure and fills a small pool. When I saw it in the summer it was a bit dry but apparently it forms a small waterfall according to local sources. I learnt of the site from Thompson’s 1999 work and when visited did not see any sign of ribbons. Now this is the county’s only rag well. This can be seen from this screenshot from a recent video visiting the site. Why?
Rags near Lud’s Well image from Steve Fuller’s Vimeo video
The origin of the name may suggest why. Although it is believed to come from O.E Hlud meaning ‘loud’ others prefer to believe it is derived from Celtic deity Lud, this however is unlikely. Thus it seems very likely that the site has been adopted by the local pagan community who have adopted the attaching of ribbons as a pagan gesture.
So why. Such a cluster as far east as it is as possible to go puts in question the idea that the custom is strongly Celtic in origin perhaps. So why in Lincolnshire. A theory I discuss in my working thesis on the work is that the custom was brought by gypsy communities who had a stronghold in the county. However, why these particular springs is unclear perhaps like Winterton, Hemswell, Aisthorpe, Healing they were close to main roads – we cannot state this in the case of the lost sites of course.
What is interesting is how quickly the custom died out in the county and one wonders whether this is correlated by the reduction in gypsy numbers as well.
holyandhealingwells 