by Kai Roberts
St John’s Well at Harpham, where St John of Beverley performed miracles. (Kai Roberts)
However, much as saints’ bones were easily faked, so were their wells. The only examples in Yorkshire which have a strong historical connection with their patrons are those dedicated to St Cedd and St Chadd at Lastingham, the former location of a monastery founded by those two clerics in the seventh century. However, whilst a number of wells around Whitby are dedicated to St Hilda, who established the abbey in the town during the same period, the traditions are so vague as to leave considerable room for doubt. Lady Hilda is supposed to have had a retreat near the wells dedicated to her at Hindwell and Aislaby, and often supped from Abbey Well at Hawsker, but there is no evidence to corroborate any of these traditions. It is also instructive that Christianity almost entirely died out around Whitby between the Viking invasion of AD 867 and its Norman restoration in 1078, and it is doubtful the name of her well could have survived two centuries of pagan Danish occupation.
Other notable examples of wells dedicated to indigenous saints in Yorkshire are equally suspect. St John’s Well at Harpham is dedicated to St John of Beverley and the village claims to be the birthplace of the saint; unfortunately, contemporary sources make no reference to this fact and the tradition is not recorded before the sixteenth century. The long-lost St Robert’s Well at Knaresborough rose on land close to St Robert’s Cave, where the twelfth-century hermit is reputed to have lived, but there is evidence to suggest that it was an earlier Holywell rededicated to the local saint. Meanwhile, despite his well’s popularity in the Middle Ages, there is no evidence to suggest that St Mungo ever visited Copgove; nor, for that matter, that St Augustine once preached beside St Austin’s Well at Drewton and baptised new converts in its waters.
As the Middle Ages wore on, wells were increasingly dedicated to universal saints. In some cases, the dedication may have taken place as the result of a vision of the saint enjoyed by some rustic at that spot, much as shrines continue to spring up across the Roman Catholic world today. In other instances, the dedication may imply not that the well was considered sacred in itself, but simply that it provided the water supply for a nearby chapel. Lady Wells – dedicated to Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary – were particularly common during this period, as the mother of Christ was considered to be a universal intercessor and proximity to her mortal traces was not necessary for prayers to her to be effective. In Yorkshire, examples are recorded at Hartshead, Brayton, Roche Abbey, Catwick and Threshfield to name but a few.
Wells dedicated to St Helen were also common in the late Middle Ages, especially in Yorkshire, with a famous example surviving at Eshton, near Gargrave, which is still venerated today. Indeed, some commentators have regarded St Helen as disproportionately attached to wells – her name is the most common dedication for holy wells but only twentieth for church dedications – and used this fact to suggest that this is a corrupt remembrance of the well’s previous connection with some pre-Christian female water deity. However, St Helen may have had stronger links with Yorkshire than any pagan goddess. She was the mother of the Roman emperor, Constantine the Great, who Christianised the Roman Empire under her influence. As Constantine’s father died in York, and it was from that city his own succession to emperor was proclaimed, a local medieval tradition held that Helen was a native of the area and this may have much to do with her association with holy wells in the county.
The Reformation attempted to sweep away well worship, like so many popular medieval Christian customs, once and for all. But, as in numerous other cases, it was only partially successful and whilst such veneration declined in the fifty years immediately following the dissolution of the monasteries, the continental fashion for spa waters ensured that it soon made a comeback, albeit in modified form. Although Protestantism found the doctrine of saintly intercession unconscionably idolatrous, it was not averse to the idea that ‘heavenly grace was concentrated at particular locations’. However, they revised the mechanisms by which this was thought to occur, providing a pseudo-scientific veneer so that wells were thereafter venerated for their supposed miraculous mineral properties. Nonetheless, this led to the rejection of the pure water of many medieval holy wells, in favour of those with a high iron or sulphur content – and a correspondingly astringent flavour.
It was also during this period that certain holy wells developed a reputation for curing specific ailments. During the Middle Ages, saintly intercession was regarded as effective for any complaints but, now couched in medical terminology, the claims made for wells needed to be smaller and more credible. The most common disorders treated at wells from the sixteenth century onwards were connected with the eye: St Akelda’s Well at Middleham, St Helen’s Well at Eshton, St John’s Well at Harpham and Lady Well at Threshfield were all known for their potency in this regard. Some other wells were more specialised: St Peter’s Well at Barmby-on-the-Marsh was thought to treat scurvy; St Mungo’s Well at Copgrove cured rickets; and St John’s Well at Harpham was also known to tame wild animals. The only genuinely effective wells, however, were those whose unusually cold waters offered respite to rheumatics, such as St Peter’s Well in Leeds.
Despite the scientific façade with which many wells were now presented, the rituals performed at them were still very much a product of the pre-modern mind. For instance, rather than take a course of the mineral water, a single draught or one-off bodily immersion was usually held to be sufficient for the well to work its cure. Meanwhile, one of the most widespread customs was for a visitor to tear a strip from their clothing and tie it to some branch beside the well; leaving it there symbolised leaving their infirmity behind and it was thought that as the rag decayed, so would their illness diminish. During the eighteenth and nineteenth century, it was often noted that the trees around the St Helen’s Wells at Walton and Eshton were festooned with rags for this purpose. The practice was also noted at St Oswald’s Well in Great Ayton, but the garment of the sick person was first thrown into the well; if it floated, then its owner would recover, but if it sank, the prognosis was dire.
Such divination was often frequently practiced at wells up until the nineteenth century. At St John’s Well, near Mount Grace Priory, people wanting to make a wish would stick a pin through an ivy leaf and float it on the water; the direction in which the pin turned would indicate the likelihood of favourable response. More typically, lovesick girls would simply cast a crooked pin into the well whilst wishing for a vision of their future husband and this practice is extensively recorded at Lady Well in Brayton. The pins were believed to be an offering to the fairy who presided over the well, and a story from Brayton relates that the fairies wished to use the pins for their arrowheads, but having no power over iron they could only obtain it through such a trade. An association between fairies and wells was quite common in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, and it may be that the presiding fairy represented a corrupted memory of the well’s former saintly patron.
However, the precise symbolism of the crooked pin is uncertain. Some writers have suggested a link to the ritually damaged votive offerings deposited by many prehistoric cultures, but like other connections between well worship and pre-Christian religions, this is tenuous at best. Oblations are a feature of many faiths and it is common to find offerings left at Christian shrines today. Hence, during the Middle Ages, the pin may have been connected to some more ornate item of jewellery and represented a more significant sacrifice, which eventually lost its meaning and value when mass-production of pins began during the Industrial Revolution. Meanwhile, crooked items were often considered ‘lucky’ in previous centuries, such as a crooked sixpence carried as a talisman and immortalised in the nursery rhyme.
It is clear that as the centuries passed and medical science advanced, the practice of praying for healing at wells had evolved into more generalised wishing. Whilst the rags that were tied to the trees around St Helen’s Well at Walton may once have been intended to represent a visitor’s ai
lment, the comments of nineteenth-century writers suggest they were now more typically left as an offering to ensure the fulfilment of their heart’s desire. Sometimes there was a more elaborate ritual to be performed. For instance, anybody hoping for their wish to be granted at Lady Well, near Roche Abbey, had to take a sip of water from the well then hold it in their mouth whilst they walked backwards up the hillside and passed through a hole in an old tree, mentally repeating their wish the whole time.
Much as Protestantism had been unable to suppress the practice of leaving offerings at wells, it was similarly unable to defeat the popular notion that well waters were more potent on certain days of the year. In the case of holy wells with medieval provenances, this was still often the day of the feast of the saint to whom the well had been dedicated; whilst for post-Reformation spa wells, a more universal holy day was chosen, such as Palm Sunday or Ascension Day. Lady Anne’s Well near the ruins of Howley Hall at Morley in West Yorkshire was supposed to run with a variety of colours at six o’clock in the morning of Palm Sunday. Local legend added that sometime in the seventeenth century, a lady of Howley Hall by the name of Anne Saville, used to bathe in the well. On one such occasion, she fell asleep by its side, whereupon she was fatally attacked by some wild animals from the surrounding woods and the well was named in her memory.
Spaw Sunday celebrated in Cragg Vale. (John Billingsley)
The mill-workers of Batley and Birstall visited the well on Palm Sunday to take the chalybeate waters at St Anne’s Well, and the annual Feldkirk Fair grew up around it. Such occasions would regularly see large crowds congregate at certain wells to drink the water and were the scene of much ‘rowdyism’. In Calderdale, spa celebrations were held on the first Sunday in May, known as ‘Spaw Sunday’, and taken very seriously indeed. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, great numbers of people from across the valley made pilgrimages to spa wells in Luddenden and Cragg Vale. The practice has recently been revived at the latter and now pilgrims process to the well from the church of St John in the Wilderness, although many are reluctant to taste the strongly sulphurous waters and content themselves with a sniff.
Of course, a well did not have to be known for its healing properties for a folk tradition to develop around it. The Ebbing and Flowing Well, near Giggleswick, is a particularly famous example whose waters can rise and fall by several inches, sometimes a number of times over the course of an hour. The action is caused by a complex geological siphon in the surrounding hillside, but in his epic topographical poem of 1612, ‘Poly-Olbion’, Michael Drayton records a more colourful tradition. He claims the area was once home to a beautiful but shy nymph, who had the misfortune to be seen by a lustful satyr. This beast pursued her with dark intentions and as his quarry grew weary from the chase, she fell down panting and begged the gods for salvation. In response, they took the curious decision to transform her into a spring:
The Ebbing and Flowing Well at Giggleswick — a transformed nymph? (Kathryn Wilson)
Even as the fearful nymph then thick and short did blow
Now made by them a spring, so doth she ebb and flow.
Despite the fame of this legend, it is unlikely that it was a genuine local tradition and may be Drayton’s invention entirely. Spirits such as nymphs and satyrs belong to Greco-Roman mythology, not Yorkshire folklore, and the tale seems more likely to have sprung from the imagination of an Oxford Classicist than a Craven hill-farmer. A more typically indigenous tale connected to the Ebbing and Flowing Well suggests it was once the retreat of an old wise-woman who gave the highwayman, Will Nevison, a magic bit for his mare; an artefact which allowed the horse to vault previously unimagined distances and so throw off pursuit. A number of limestone gullies in the Dales bear the title ‘Nevison’s Leap’ and on one occasion, the horse is even reputed to have cleared the vast chasm of Gordale Scar.
Meanwhile, at Harpham, the beat of a drum was once supposed to echo from a well close to the old manor house upon the death of any member of the Quintin family, formerly squires of the village. It is said to be the spirit of Tom Hewson, who served as a drummer-boy to the Quintin family in the Middle Ages. Legend relates that he was knocked into the well during an archery tournament as an enraged Squire Quintin pushed past him to scold an incompetent contestant. By the time Tom’s body was retrieved, he had drowned, much to the anguish of his mother, Molly Hewson, a local witch. In her grief, she decreed: ‘Squire Quintin, you were the friend of my boy, but from your hand his death has come. Therefore, whenever a Quintin, Lord of Harpham, dies, my poor boy shall beat his drum at the bottom of this fatal well.’ The site is known today as the Drumming Well and another such well was once recorded at nearby North Frodingham, but its tradition is less defined.
Phantoms are often associated with holy wells, but their legends are typically much more vague. A white lady wandered near Lady Well at Catwick, accompanied by the cry of an unseen baby; whilst a one-eyed, hooded woman haunted Holywell at Atwick, variously reputed to be the spirit of a murder victim buried there, or a nun from nearby Nunkeeling Priory. Equally, many wells – such as Thruskell Well near Burnsall – were regarded as the haunt of generic entities such as Jenny Greenteeth or Peg-o-the-Well, who would drag children who got too close into the well’s murky depths. Doubtless such stories were widely employed by cautious parents trying to keep their children from drowning, but often the role of ‘bogeyman’ was the final function of a belief that had once been sincerely held by the adult community (See Chapter Eight).
The Drumming Well at Harpham from which a drum beats on the death of a local noble. (Kai Roberts)
Lady Well at Threshfield, whose waters could ward off evil spirits. (Kai Roberts)
However, wells were not universally favoured by spirits: in some instances, their consecrated waters were an effective defence against them and such was the case at Lady Well, near Threshfield. Local legend reports that Threshfield Grammar School was once sorely troubled by a ghost known as Pam the Fiddler, who resembled a ‘wizened owd man, summat of a monkey sort, covered with soft downy hair.’ Old Pam was a merry spirit who was often heard to fiddle all night in the schoolrooms, accompanied by the shouts and laughter of his spectral party guests, whilst an uncanny illumination streamed from the windows. Many locals were quite fond of Pam, but the schoolmasters hated him and frequently complained about his presence distracting the pupils, as he paced the upper floor or slammed doors shut with abandon.
One night, a drunken tinker named Daniel Cooper was passing by the school at a late hour as he returned home from the pub. Seeing that eerie light from the windows, he knew that Pam’s revels must be in full swing and thought to spy on their carousing. Unfortunately, however, he attracted the attention of the assembled spirits with a sneeze, and, furious with the tinker’s imposition, they pursued him into the night. Fearful for his soul, Daniel took refuge in the middle of nearby Lady Well, but whilst Pam and his entourage dare not pluck their prey from its sacred waters, they remained on guard at a safe distance. As a result, Daniel was forced to spend the night immersed up to his neck in bitterly cold water, until the cock finally crowed and dawn drove the ghosts away. Yet, despite his ordeal in the icy well, he is said to have emerged with renewed vigour – doubtless a testament to the healing properties of those holy waters.
ELEVEN
SECRET TUNNELS AND BURIED TREASURE
Secret tunnels are one of the most ubiquitous motifs in English folklore: in every locality, there is bound to be some tavern, church, mansion or ruin to which the legend of a hidden conduit is attached. In many cases, these rumours of lost subterranean passages have survived into the present day, whilst they have been reinvented for recent generations through tales of Cold War nuclear bunkers and classified government installations. These mysterious underground networks seem to exert a powerful influence over the collective psyche and no matter how many times the reports are debunked, belief in their existence persists.
There are good reasons for this
. Over the centuries, actual secret tunnels have been constructed – then forgotten about and rediscovered – for numerous purposes: for instance, to enable smugglers to evade the Customs & Excise men; to permit nobles to escape a besieged castle; or to allow priests access to a Catholic house unhindered during the Reformation. Equally, old buildings often seem to display signs of such clandestine passageways, although when properly excavated they mostly prove to be little more than the remains of an ancient drain or ice-house.
Pseudo-historical narrative and superficial evidence are woven around every tunnel rumour to lend a veneer of plausibility, which can whet the appetite of even the most circumspect local historian. Typically, however, the game is often given away by the impossibility of the structure. The tunnels of local folklore invariably run an unfeasible length or traverse impractical terrain. Some are supposed to pass beneath rivers, where the workings would quickly flood and collapse, or between points of radically different altitude. Whilst our ancestors were often remarkable engineers, such feats were undoubtedly beyond them.
As if secret tunnels were not themselves sufficiently stimulating to the imagination, they also proved fertile ground for more fantastic speculation. Supernatural entities frequently haunted these passages, from beasts guarding them from unwelcome incursions to ghosts tracing the route as they had done in life. Following his leap from Scar Top at Netherton, the Devil still wanders the network of tunnels beneath Castle Hill near Huddersfield, whilst only a short distance away at Lepton, the headless ghost of Sir Richard ‘Black Dick’ Beaumont stalks the course of a tunnel between Whitley Hall and a folly known as Black Dick’s Tower.
Tunnels are also known as one of many repositories for that other staple of local legend – buried treasure. Again, such rumours have a greater credibility than many pre-modern folk beliefs. Prehistoric and Anglo-Saxon burial mounds have been known to yield valuable grave goods, whilst prior to the existence of a proper banking system, burial was often the only way of securing personal wealth against the vicissitudes of fortune. During troubled times from the Roman occupation through the Dark Ages to the medieval period, men of property have entrusted their savings to the earth and for various reasons, never returned to reclaim it.