<< Text Pages >> Mungo's Well (Carsphairn) - Holy Well or Sacred Spring in Scotland in Dumfries and Galloway
Submitted by Anne T on Friday, 01 July 2022 Page Views: 382
Springs and Holy WellsSite Name: Mungo's Well (Carsphairn) Alternative Name: St Mungo's Well (Carsphairn); Physic Well (Holm Burn)Country: Scotland
NOTE: This site is 2.281 km away from the location you searched for.
County: Dumfries and Galloway Type: Holy Well or Sacred Spring
Nearest Town: Dalmellington / St John's Town of Dalry Nearest Village: Carsphairn
Map Ref: NX6492799555
Latitude: 55.271573N Longitude: 4.12759W
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 |
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Holy Well or Sacred Spring in Dumfries and Galloway
Not recorded on Canmore, but researched by the Can You Dig It: Lost Wells of Galloway (LWoG) project, their researchers, Claire Williamson and David Bartholomew, tell us: "The site of Mungo's Well is located beside the route of Holm Burn, to the west of Upper Holm of Dalquhairn farm. It first appears on the 1st edition Ordnance Curvey 6-inch map of 1853".
They go onto say there is a difference in opinion as to how this well was named: "The Ordnance Survey name book ... describes it as 'A good spring well on the farm of Upper Holm o'Dalquhairn. How it got its name is not known in the locality but Mr Fergusson says that it is probable it received its name from the man who dug it, probably named Mungo'. However, the Place-Names of the Galloway Glens database - see Mungos Well - observes: "On the 1853 map the well is shown beside the Holm Burn. Its outflow joins that burn a short distance from the well. There is no record of it on OS Digimap, though the track of the outflow is still visible on aerial photography (Google Earth). This might have been a holy well with a saintly dedication to St Mungo, but by the mid-nineteenth century this association, if it ever existed, was forgotten ... It lies beside the Holm Burn, which forms the boundary between Upper and Nether Holm of Dalquhairn (Upper to the north, Nether to the south). The detailed Plan of the Lands of Nether Holm (1773) does not show it, perhaps because it is (just) over the boundary, but it does show Physic well on the south side of the burn a short distance downstream."
One of the LWoG researchers made a site visit in 2021, and recorded: "It's in the middle of a fairly flat boggy area of moss and reeds about 20 to 30 metres from the river. A clogged up shallow ditch runs down from the well to the river. In many ways it seems more like a spring than a well. The well itself isn't any wider than the ditch leading out from it, and water was running/trickling into it from the top end of it .... I think the well was 60 to 70 cms deep .... it had a pebbly bottom. The ground around the well is composed of iron-rich peaty soil which caused a reddish brown discolouration of the water when disturbed".
Does anyone have any more information about this well, and how it came to be classified as a possible holy well? Do you know if its waters were used for baptismal or healing and/or restorative purposes? If you have visited this site and have photographs, please would you be able to add them to this site page? Thank you.
The Lost Wells of Galloway project is a community project, "setting out to map and better understand lost wells in Galloway, considering how we relate to these historic features now and how this has changed over time".
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