<< Our Photo Pages >> The Golden Well (Dorstone) - Holy Well or Sacred Spring in England in Herefordshire

Submitted by Sunny100 on Saturday, 21 July 2012  Page Views: 3746

Springs and Holy WellsSite Name: The Golden Well (Dorstone)
Country: England
NOTE: This site is 0.3 km away from the location you searched for.
County: Herefordshire Type: Holy Well or Sacred Spring
Nearest Town: Hay-on-Wye  Nearest Village: Dorstone
Map Ref: SO30804228
Latitude: 52.074541N  Longitude: 3.011078W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
 2 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
 3 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
 3 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
 4

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I have visited· I would like to visit

AJHL visited on 31st Dec 2022 - their rating: Cond: 1 Amb: 4 Access: 4 The wood has been cut down resulting in new undergrowth over marshy ground. Quite difficult to find but it’s still there

4clydesdale7 visited on 31st May 2013 - their rating: Cond: 2 Amb: 3 Access: 3 Recent drainage work seems to have very badly affected the Well - do plenty of research on maps before you go



Average ratings for this site from all visit loggers: Condition: 1.5 Ambience: 3.5 Access: 3.5

The Golden Well (Dorstone)
The Golden Well (Dorstone) submitted by AJHL : The Golden Well. The bullrushes grow out of the pool which is overgrown and difficult to see. But you will know it when you suddenly drop in to it like I did! Thankfully no giant carp in sight. (Vote or comment on this photo)
About half a mile north-west of Dorstone at the western edge of Bell Alders Wood, close to the B4348 road, can still be found the sacred spring known as 'The Golden Well'. Today, however, there is only a pool of water and it is difficult to tell whether the spring is still flowing because the land surrounding the site drains into it and a few ditches are located close by, and the river Dore flows through the woods too.

But according to local legend, a sacred trout used to swim in the pool and local people used to come here to see this spectacle and no doubt make wishes or hope for some miracle which would help them with whatever ailments they suffered from. This sacred trout could be the one displayed in St Peter's church at nearby Peterchurch.
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Nearby Images from Geograph Britain and Ireland:
SO3041 : Road from Dorstone to Mynyddbrith by Jaggery
by Jaggery
©2012(licence)
SO3141 : Harvest time near Dorstone by Jaggery
by Jaggery
©2012(licence)
SO3041 : Arable land west of Dorstone by Jonathan Billinger
by Jonathan Billinger
©2012(licence)
SO3141 : Hay trailer at the edge of Dorstone by Jaggery
by Jaggery
©2012(licence)
SO3042 : Spoon Lane, Dorstone by Philip Halling
by Philip Halling
©2006(licence)

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"The Golden Well (Dorstone)" | Login/Create an Account | 1 comment
  
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Re: The Golden Well (Dorstone) by Anonymous on Sunday, 02 June 2013
I went in search of this Well whilst 'in the area' recently and spent about 2 hours wandering around the Bell Alders Wood. Sometime in the last 30yrs a large pond and numerous new drainage ditches have been created to the west of the Wood and along its NW and S boundaries - which works seemed to have caused problems -

How the area has changed may be more easily appreciated by analysis of the Maps of the Area displayed by the Old Maps website, the pastscape website and the Flash Earth, Bing and Google aerial shots available as direct links from this page - up to 1985 no OS map shows a pond immediately to the NW of the Wood but it can clearly be seen with use of the Modern Maps and Bing etc aerial photos - to try to put it nicely the Pond recently looked like a fetid swamp (I say little else about its condition at this stage) -

On the ground it can be appreciated quite easily that the River Dore enters the Wood (and flows SE through it) just N of the 'pond' - the new drainage ditches proceed to the SW corner of the Wood (SE corner of the pond) and along the S boundary of the Wood - there is a strong flow along this new ditch - and therein lies the difficulty in finding the 'Golden Well or Spring' - the Well used to be midway along the S boundary of the Wood and its water used to flow easterly along a brook into the River Dore further E again within the Wood -

Put a little more graphically the new Ditch along the S boundary seems to connect a sump near the SE corner of the new Pond diverting the flow of other new ditches away from the pond but towards the Brook which used to have its source as the Golden Well - hence it is monumentally difficult to detect where the Well/Spring rises
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