<< Our Photo Pages >> St. Helen's Well (Hemswell) - Holy Well or Sacred Spring in England in Lincolnshire
Submitted by HOLYWELL on Saturday, 08 January 2011 Page Views: 8817
Springs and Holy WellsSite Name: St. Helen's Well (Hemswell) Alternative Name: Seven SpringsCountry: England
NOTE: This site is 3.448 km away from the location you searched for.
County: Lincolnshire Type: Holy Well or Sacred Spring
Nearest Town: Gainsborough Nearest Village: Hemswell
Map Ref: SK932911
Latitude: 53.408494N Longitude: 0.599441W
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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Catrinm visited on 5th Jan 2020 - their rating: Cond: 4 Amb: 4 Access: 4 quite easy to find taking footpath up hill. There is definitely more than one spring
and the one under the Devils pulpit (St Helens) was flowing well. The resultant stream goes through houses gardens and through the village. Also saw the Maypole
Seven springs apparently rise from the spring wells and one of these is dedicated to St Helen’s Well. The site has an eerie but not unquiet atmosphere this is possibly due to the stone called the Devil’s pulpit, a large approximately six foot high piece of sandstone under which a small spring arises. This Thompson (1999) on his work on wells and springs in the county notes local opinion thought was St. Helen’s, he said it tasted sweeten than the other waters (a fact that I cannot testify as the spring has appeared to have almost dried up the year I went). Binnall (1845) notes that the spring wells were regarded as possessing curative powers and rags were hung on the surrounding bushes.
The village name deriving from Helmes, gen. sing. of the OE masculine name Helm, or from helmes, gen. sing. of OE helm ‘a helmet, the summit of a hill, a shelter’, so that the name is either ‘Helm's spring’ or ‘spring at the summit or shelter’ which rather neatly defines its topography. However, other authorities suggest its gets its name from elm trees which once grew around the wells. Of the pupil local children are said to have once poke pins into it and ran around it several times. After this they thought they could hear the Devil speaking from deep underground. There is a very old maypole also in the village so perhaps the 'old ways' were strong in this village.
The Northern Antiquarian (TNA) also features a page for this site - see their entry for St Helen’s Well, Hemswell, Lincolnshire, which gives directions for finding this site, together with a brief description and local folklore.
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