Thames

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by Peter Ackroyd


  There were of course poachers, not deterred by the prospect of arrest and fine, who subscribed to the ancient belief that the river belonged to no man. As one of them said to the water-bailiff, “Don’t the fish belong to me as much as to you? What were they sent for then?” There was also a prolonged struggle, at the end of the nineteenth century, between private owners and public anglers with the former exerting their rights over stretches of the river. The matter was never conclusively argued one way or another, and various local disputes were settled by compromise and accommodation. There were, however, cases of extensive legal disagreement, with the foundation of the Thames Fishing Defence Fund and the popularity of a piece of verse:

  If man or boy the law condemns

  For taking fish from out the Thames,

  What, pray, should be that person’s dish,

  Who takes the river from the fish?

  PART XI

  The Healing Spring

  St. Anne’s well

  CHAPTER 35

  The Healing Water

  The Thames has always been allied with healing. It is a river of comfort and of restoration. Since it has been customarily associated with baptism, and with other purification rites, its regenerative powers are easily transposed into the realm of physical health. What can be more health-giving than pure water? Water is the nutritive element, the maternal fluid, the milk of nature. Since the water is guardian and preserver of health, the Thames itself becomes a healing sight. It is also a site for the healing of eyes. Ever since St. Augustine performed miracles near the Thames at Cricklade, persuading the blind to see, the wells and springs beside the river have been commonly supposed to cure diseases of the eye. Glaucoma was more popularly known as “water of the eye.” There are some twenty-six healing springs known to be sited by the Thames, and of course there are many more that have faded from the view of more sceptical centuries.

  The spring is perhaps the purest and brightest of all natural phenomena. It is always fresh and always renewed, emerging from the subterranean depths like the source of life itself. The polluter of a spring was, in all cultures, deemed to be accursed. The divinities of the ancient world congregated by springs, and each spring had its tutelary god or goddess. Those once dedicated to the ancient goddess Tan have now been renamed St. Anne’s Well, or perhaps St. Catherine’s Well, but the old mystery survives. As an early Christian bishop, Martin of Braga, put it—“…to put bread in a spring, what is that but the worship of the devil?”

  There is an everlasting spring beside the Thames, in the wood below Sinodun Hill. A shrine to one of the earliest Christian saints of the Thames, Birinus, was erected here for sick cattle. The spring at Cricklade was situated in a meadow to the north of the river, and in previous centuries the people of Gloucestershire and Wiltshire would resort here and fill their bottles with its treasured water. It was reported by those in the neighbourhood that it was “good for the eyes.” By 1910, however, it had ceased to be employed as a curative. The spring is now covered over with concrete. There was a spring, known as Assenden Spring, which ran into the Thames at Henley; it was believed to possess the medicinal properties of carbonated water, but it has now disappeared or been forgotten. There were a number of springs and wells (it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between them in the old accounts) close to Pangbourne; there was a spring dedicated to another riverine saint, Frideswide, on Frilsham Heath. A curious superstition was attached to this place. It was customary for courting couples to walk here and drink the waters of the old well; if the young man’s intentions were not honourable, a toad would appear and spit at him.

  There were of course wells close beside the Thames, and many of the names of the villages near the riverside bear testimony to their presence—Brightwell-cum-Sotwell, or Sweet Well, Ewelme meaning “wells,” Monge-well and others. The well must be one of the oldest of all human devices, and there are wells in the Indus Valley that have been dated to 3000 BC. In the pictographic script of Sumeria, that home of great rivers, a circular symbol is believed to denote a well. The wells of London owe their origin to the tributary streams running down to the river—Clement’s Well, Clerkenwell, Bagnigge Wells, St. Pancras Wells, Sadler’s Wells, Skinner’s Wells, Faggeswell, Monkwell, St. Agnes Le Clair (which became Anniseed Clear), and Blessed Mary’s Well (that was renamed Black Mary’s Well or Black Mary’s Hole at the time of the Reformation).

  There is some confusion over Chadwell or Shadwell, in addition to the downriver village of Chadwell St. Mary; it might be supposed that they were named in honour of St. Chad, the seventh-century bishop, but he is the local saint of Staffordshire rather than of the Thames region. The names of imported saints are infrequent, and Chad-well may instead simply mean “cold spring.” Nevertheless at Shadwell itself, just by Wapping, there was in the eighteenth century a mineral spring that was known as Shadwell Spa; it was said to be impregnated with sulphur, vitriol, steel and antimony that were efficacious against diseases of the skin. It was approached by means of Well Alley, opposite the New Stairs of Wapping; at the back of this alley were the Old Swan Tavern Fields. Here was the mineral spring.

  There are other holy wells in London. The Chelsea and Lambeth waterworks, not coincidentally, were built on the site of Seething Wells. St. Bride’s Well, or St. Bridget’s Well, of course became Bridewell. These once holy sites are directly related to the passing of the river through the city. There was a mineral spring, known as the postern spring, on Tower Hill. There was another spring, and a consequent number of wells, upon the north side of what is now Queen Victoria Street a few yards from the river at Blackfriars; Roman ritual offerings have been found there. There were other offerings in wells at Southwark, by the south bank of the river. There was a famous phrase set in stone beside a marble fountain in Rome and equally apposite for London: NYMPHIS LOCI BIBE LAVA TACE. “The places of the nymphs—drink, wash and be silent.”

  One of the most celebrated wells was located at Binsey, beside the river outside Oxford. This also was associated with the river goddess or Christian saint, Frideswide, who “by her prayers, caused it to be opened.” It was known as St. Margaret’s Well, just by the west end of the chapel erected here by Frideswide in 730; the well had a stone covering, as well as an image of Margaret or Frideswide, and flowers were placed beside it. The water was reputed to work miracles; two blind sisters of Eynsham, Jurkiva and Rilda, were supposed to have regained their sight after their pilgrimage here. Such was its efficacy and repute that its water sold for a guinea a quart (1.1 litres); the neighbouring village of Seckworth was transformed into a large town with twenty-four inns for priests and pilgrims as well as eleven churches. In the oratory of Frideswide’s chapel, the crutches and bandages of the healed were hung about the walls.

  By the mid-nineteenth century, however, the waters had vanished beneath the earth. Seckworth itself disappeared in the twelfth century, leaving only a few cottages behind, and now lies forgotten under pasture land. In the later nineteenth century Frideswide’s well was rebuilt and then entered English literature in another guise. One of the ancient words for healing substance was “treacle” or “triacle.” Lewis Carroll, who knew Binsey very well, created the treacle well for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The holy well of Frideswide has by strange indirection acquired legendary status once more.

  There was a spring of healing beside the Thames at Goring. It was known as Spring-well, and in the seventeenth century it was reputed to be a cure for skin disorders, ulcers and (once again) sore eyes. In the early eighteenth century the water was bottled and marketed as “Goring Spring water” and a “valuable specific” for various ailments. But it lost its reputation, and thus its efficacy. There was another celebrated spring by the bank near Moulsford, close to the Leather Bottle Inn. It is possible that the inn itself acquired its name from the vessels used to take the water. There was a healing spring at Chertsey, known as “St. Anne’s Well,” beside which an ancient chapel was built; there is a nineteenth-cen
tury engraving of this almost hidden spring, with relics of stone beside its shallow water. Lambeth Wells were known as a curative. There is still an old “Physic Well” hidden among trees by the Thames bank at Cumnor. By the village of Shorne, close to Gravesend, was located a chalybeate spring, containing iron salts, that was considered to be highly effective in the cure of scurvy. Along the same stretch of the Thames there was a spring at West Tilbury, from which issued “canary water” used in the treatment of diabetes and internal haem-orrhaging. In the eighteenth century it was bottled as “Tilbury Water.” There was a holy well by the river at Reading, “between a field called the Mount and a lane called Priest’s Lane.” Beside this well stood a mighty oak-tree, which was also held in great veneration. Downriver there was a health spa known as Richmond Wells.

  In the village of Eastleach Turville there was a mineral spring of strongly “cathartic” character, and in Bampton there was a holy well that once possessed a wide reputation for healing the eyes. There is a well in the north-western corner of the churchyard of St. Mary Magdalen, North Ockendon, that is connected with the baptismal ministry of St. Cedd, when he came as a missionary among the East Saxons; popular belief supposes that its spring originates in Kent and then travels under the river to come forth in Essex. The village was in more ancient times known as Northockendon Septfontaynes, of the seven springs, but all trace of these has long since disappeared. They may be compared, however, to the “Seven Springs” that are considered to be an alternative source of the Thames.

  The water of the Thames itself was once generally reported to have semi-miraculous properties, and in particular the gift of self-purification. The water by Hampton Court was also believed to possess medicinal properties, and in 1794 it was described as “efficacious in the gravel [for kidney stones], excellent for drinking and washing, but unfit for culinary use” because it turned the vegetables black. It is certainly true that the area of Hampton Court enjoyed an enviable reputation for many centuries; it was a matter of common report that it escaped the epidemics of sweating sickness, plague, smallpox and scarlet fever which were raging in its immediate neighbourhood. This immunity was also ascribed to the protection of the river.

  The waters at Marlow were reputed to be good for alleviating the symptoms of gout. The riverine neighbourhood of Streatley also had a reputation for its health-giving qualities. There is hardly a stretch of the upper and middle river, in fact, which does not possess some real or symbolic properties of healing. When in 1568 the Jesuit George Napier was hanged, drawn and quartered, his butchered body was thrown into the Thames at Oxford; but the river reunited his severed parts and by the time it reached Sandford the corpse was entire again. It is no more than a story, a superstition of the river, but it is maintained by the ancient belief that by immersion in the river the body can become whole again.

  There were many hospitals established by the river, as if in implicit communion with its curative properties. There was an old hospital at Abingdon, erected during the reign of Henry V on the site of an ancient monastery dedicated to the Holy Cross, suggesting the implicit connection between piety, water worship and healing. A hospital dedicated to St. John the Baptist was established at Cricklade during the reign of Henry III; part of the present parish of St. Sampson is still called “Spital” in its memory. There are many other examples of these ancient foundations by the Thames, but it is perhaps more instructive to look at their more recent incarnations. A tour downriver, along the London stretch of the Thames in the twenty-first century, will reveal the Cheyne Hospital at Chelsea, once known as “the Little Hospital by the River,” the Lister Hospital by Chelsea Bridge, St. Thomas’s Hospital, King’s College Medical School and the London Bridge Hospital. There is still an association.

  A number of mental hospitals or asylums were placed beside the Thames. Close to the river, in the church at Swanscombe, was an altar famous throughout the region for the cure of madness; here, in previous centuries, a great number of suffering pilgrims were brought by their friends. Beside the river at Sonning, before the Reformation, there was another chapel of great repute in the cure of madness; as Leland put it, “there is an Old Chapelle at the Est ende of the Churche of S. Sarik, whither of late tyme resorted in Pilgrimage many folks for the Disease of Madness.” There was a ritual enclosure here in the Neolithic period, and there may be some distant but distinct connection; the church still stands. Chiswick House, beside the Thames, was once a private asylum. A few yards from the village of Moulsford, by the Thames, was until recent years the Berkshire Mental Hospital. There was a mental hospital by the river at Littlemore, once the parish of John Henry Newman. The path of the Thames now passes the park and mansion of Higginson, once the residence of Dr. William Battie who specialised in the cure of mental illness. Some of the river’s tributaries reflect its power. The river Hogsmill, which enters the Thames at Kingston, runs close to what was a complex of five mental hospitals in Epsom; its source was at Ewell where stood the Ewell Mental Hospital. It had been established in 1903 as the Ewell Epileptic Colony, but became a mental hospital from 1930 until 1962.

  In Gerarde’s Herball (1597) there are many descriptions of the flowers to be found beside the banks of the river including the comfrey “which joyeth in watery ditches, in far and fruitfull meadows” and the water-betony that “groweth by brookes and running waters, by ditch sides, and by the brinks of rivers.” It is clear from the title of his book that these river flowers are supposed to have medicinal and curative properties; they share the general atmosphere of cleansing and purification that surrounds the flowing water. Many of the plants and flowers by the Thames are in fact still used as alternatives to conventional medicine; the yellow bedstraw is used for infections of the feet, while the marigold is efficacious for the eyes and the skin. The flowers of the river, like the river itself, can heal. The purple and yellow loosestrife has received its name from its ancient property of taming wild animals and quelling discord among beasts. So the calm and quietness of the Thames are carried by its native plants. The sweet sedge, that grows in the waters of the Thames, was scattered upon the floors of houses and churches to render them fragrant.

  The Thames also fosters herbs that have the especial repute of healing. There is the eyebright, which might be considered the guardian plant of the Thames since according to the popular verse “eyebright makes the blinde to see”:

  Thank ye God with alle your soule

  For ye herbe that makes sicke eyes whole.

  Another herb to be seen in great quantities beside the Thames, the meadowsweet, has similar effects. Nicholas Culpeper, the seventeenth-century herbalist, states in The Complete Herbal and English Physician (1653) that “a water distilled from them is good for inflammation of the eyes.” In this context we may mention the Chelsea Physic Garden, bordering on the river, where medicinal herbs were once grown for simples and for ointments. It was established by the Company of Apothecaries in 1673, specifically as a botanic garden for medicinal plants, and was relinquished by the apothecaries only at the end of the nineteenth century. The spot was chosen precisely because of its proximity to the Thames. It has been suggested that this was the result of the more favourable “microclimate” which the water provides, but there may be more ancient affiliations. Health, “physic,” and the river have always formed a close association.

  There are many other river herbs. The great water dock was believed to have curative properties, and in the eighteenth century its astringent root was widely used as a medicine. St. John’s wort is a cure for depression, and the bugleweed is a sedative. The comfrey is employed to allay ulcers. The flower-heads of the reeds that decorate the banks of the river were considered to be useful in relieving bilious complaints. The common yarrow or milfoil, known to the inhabitants of the Thames as “thousand leaved grass,” was reputed to close up wounds and to prevent swelling or inflammation. It was widely used by bargemen, susceptible to bruising and injury, as an astringent. Another riverside plant, ag
rimony, was applied as a sedative. The villagers of the Thames also held tansy in great repute as a remedy for gout and for intestinal worms; the herb was also sold in apothecaries’ shops under the name of “Athanasia,” the Latin equivalent of the Greek word for immortality. Tansy may also be, or may be related to, the herb once known as arginteria. In his Description of Britaine William Harrison notes that “it is a world to see what plenty of Seraphium groweth vpon the Kentish shore…whilest he giueth foorth the herbe Argentaria for Seraphium.”

  The willow is a great frequenter of the river and its banks; its bark and leaves were once used as an astringent, and the bark itself was crushed or powdered as a medicine for what was once known as the ague. Since the ague was particularly prevalent in the marshy regions of the Thames Valley, and especially in the Thames estuary, it is an example of the local plants offering local remedies for the people of the river. The inhabitants of the Thames did in fact favour a number of native plants for common ills. The gypsies of the river, that now extinct group of travellers who followed the course of the Thames in their wanderings, were known to favour a drink made out of dock-root. For rheumatism and other ailments they made use of the bark of oaks growing close to the river; it was boiled and drunk as a kind of tea. The bark of pollard ash-trees, so common by the banks of the Thames, was also used as a concoction for the health of the liver. Marsh-mallows were good for the toothache. These herbs and plants are by no means unique to the Thames, of course, but they are an inalienable aspect of the healing powers it was once presumed to possess.

 

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