<< Image Pages >> St Wilfred's Well (Wreay) - Holy Well or Sacred Spring in England in Cumbria
Submitted by Anne T on Tuesday, 13 September 2022 Page Views: 1023
Springs and Holy WellsSite Name: St Wilfred's Well (Wreay)Country: England
NOTE: This site is 1.1 km away from the location you searched for.
County: Cumbria Type: Holy Well or Sacred Spring
Nearest Town: Carlisle Nearest Village: Wreay
Map Ref: NY443478
Latitude: 54.821933N Longitude: 2.868416W
Condition:
| 5 | Perfect |
| 4 | Almost Perfect |
| 3 | Reasonable but with some damage |
| 2 | Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site |
| 1 | Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks |
| 0 | No data. |
| -1 | Completely destroyed |
| 5 | Superb |
| 4 | Good |
| 3 | Ordinary |
| 2 | Not Good |
| 1 | Awful |
| 0 | No data. |
| 5 | Can be driven to, probably with disabled access |
| 4 | Short walk on a footpath |
| 3 | Requiring a bit more of a walk |
| 2 | A long walk |
| 1 | In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find |
| 0 | No data. |
| 5 | co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates |
| 4 | co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map |
| 3 | co-ordinates scaled from a bad map |
| 2 | co-ordinates of the nearest village |
| 1 | co-ordinates of the nearest town |
| 0 | no data |
Internal Links:
External Links:
This well is listed in McIntyre's 1944 publication "The Holy Wells of Cumberland" (page 15). He tells us the well is "S(outh) of the village in a lane between the railway and the (river) Petteril. The water is still held in high repute by the inhabitants of the village who formerly used to visit the well with the usual ceremonies".
St Wilfred's Well is also listed in Jim Taylor Page's 1990 publication "Cumbrian Holy Wells" (page 27). He tells us that the well had both pagan and Christian associations, was known to be used in May-day ceremonies "in high reputation", that there was no church associated with the well, and its present condition (at the time of publication) was "overgrown and long forgotten". Taylor Page refers to Hope's "Legendary Lore of the Holy Wells of England" (1893), but tells us to look at page 409. My version of Hope finishes on page 222, so I'm unsure if Taylor Page has an incorrect reference, of if there is a longer version of Hope's book.
The well is no longer mentioned on any of the OS maps (using the National Library of Scotland's map database), although using the grid reference given - accurate to within a 100m radius - I've compared the approximate location shown on the Historic England map search with the 1868 6 inch map (see National Library of Scotland map, Cumberland Sheet XXXI (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC-BY-NC-SA) licence).
Does anyone have any information about this well, please? Or do you have a version of Hope's "Legendary Lore" that has the page 409 referenced by Taylor Page? If so, would you be able to post a comment to this site page? Many thanks.
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Wir möchten mehr über diese Stätte erfahren. Bitte zögern Sie nicht, eine kurze Beschreibung und relevante Informationen in Deutsch hinzuzufügen.
Nous aimerions en savoir encore un peu sur les lieux. S'il vous plaît n'hesitez pas à ajouter une courte description et tous les renseignements pertinents dans votre propre langue.
Quisieramos informarnos un poco más de las lugares. No dude en añadir una breve descripción y otros datos relevantes en su propio idioma.