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<< Our Photo Pages >> St Alkelda's Holy Well - Holy Well or Sacred Spring in England in Yorkshire (North)

Submitted by Sunny100 on Thursday, 27 May 2010  Page Views: 7297

Springs and Holy WellsSite Name: St Alkelda's Holy Well Alternative Name: St Alkelda's Spring
Country: England
NOTE: This site is 0.514 km away from the location you searched for.

County: Yorkshire (North) Type: Holy Well or Sacred Spring
Nearest Town: Leyburn  Nearest Village: Middleham
Map Ref: SE124879
Latitude: 54.286583N  Longitude: 1.811027W
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
3 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.
4 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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Anne T visited on 27th Apr 2017 - their rating: Cond: 2 Amb: 1 Access: 4 St. Alkelda's Well, Middleham: How tragic – a now dried up well, completely uncared for. From St. Mary’s and St. Alkeld’s church, I was determined to find St. Alkeld’s Well. Armed only with the mobile phone, OS maps and the grid reference from Pastscape, we set off westwards across the fields, through the gate in the churchyard across a grassy field with a play area at the far end, through a gate leading into where St. Alkeld’s Road and The Springs meet, then through a stile into a grassy field. Measuring the distance between the church porch and the well, the distance is just under 250 metres. We walked past the well without realising it, thinking it was only a pile of stones and rubble that someone had tossed over their garden wall. On checking the grid reference, we walked back to it. Having seen the image of the trough by the roadside on both the Portal and Yorkshire Holy Wells, we searched in vain, eventually walking back to The Springs and looking down the driveways. The well is sited at the bottom of the gardens of the two small houses, one called ‘Well Cottage’. Having taken some photographs, we followed the footpaths back into the town centre, ending up at a medieval cross at SE 12607 87679 (see on a previous visit).

St Alkelda's Holy Well
St Alkelda's Holy Well submitted by Sunny100 : St Alkelda's Holy Well at SE.124879. Square-shaped stone tank (now dried-up) (Vote or comment on this photo)
Ancient Well at Middleham, N.Yorkshire, at SE.124879. St Alkelda's Holy well is situated 200 yards W of Middleham parish church, near Leyburn, which is dedicated to St Mary and St Alkelda. Now dried-up, the well, probably of pre-Christian origins, was made holy by the presence of the saint back in the 8th century.

Long ago the well, close to Middleham House and St Alkelda's Road, flowed through a square opening in the wall and then went underground only to surface close by and run into a 3 foot deep square-shaped stone structure or tank. Local people and visiting pilgrims would partake of the curative water, which according to legend, was good for healing poor eyesight and general health conditions. A sort of tonic perhaps.

St Alkelda or Alcelda was a Saxon princess who became a nun. However, she was murdered beside the spring by two Viking women who detested her Christian beliefs. Legend says they used a long length of cloth or something similar to carry out the terrible deed. After her death on the 28th March 800 AD she was proclaimed a martyr. Her bones, if they were hers, were discovered along with a Saxon stone (part of her shrine) in the church last century. A stainedglass window (partly14th century) depicts the saint's martyrdom.

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St Alkelda's Holy Well
St Alkelda's Holy Well submitted by Sunny100 : St Alkelda's Holy Well/Spring at SE.124879. (Vote or comment on this photo)

St Alkelda's Holy Well
St Alkelda's Holy Well submitted by Anne T : The Yorkshire Holy Wells web page says that there is “a build up of petrified moss and vegetation below the opening where the water used to flow out and this indicates the spring water had a high mineral content." The moss just below where the pipe used to be was hard, like stone. (Vote or comment on this photo)

St Alkelda's Holy Well
St Alkelda's Holy Well submitted by Anne T : This is St. Alkelda's Well as it is now - completely dried up and the trough the water used to flow into is broken - it looks like rubble someone has thrown over the garden wall. The hole where the water used to flow can still be seen, but any pipe appears to have been removed. (Vote or comment on this photo)

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Nearby Images from Geograph Britain and Ireland:
SE1287 : The Springs, Middleham by habiloid
by habiloid
©2019(licence)
SE1287 : Park Lane, Middleham by habiloid
by habiloid
©2019(licence)
SE1288 : Middleham, St Alkelda's Road by David Dixon
by David Dixon
©2021(licence)
SE1287 : Middleham War Memorial, St Mary's Churchyard by David Dixon
by David Dixon
©2021(licence)
SE1287 : War memorial in the churchyard of Saints Mary and Alkelda, Middleham by Marathon
by Marathon
©2022(licence)

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Nearby sites listing. In the following links * = Image available
 228m E 96° St Mary and St Alkelda* Ancient Cross (SE1262887878)
 1.8km N 1° Fairy Well (Harmby)* Holy Well or Sacred Spring (SE12448969)
 3.6km WNW 297° Holy Trinity (Wensley)* Ancient Cross (SE09228954)
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 6.4km SSE 164° West Agra* Rock Art (SE14248175)
 6.5km SSE 165° West Agra Carving 2b Rock Art (SE1412681669)
 6.5km SSE 164° West Agra 3a and 3b* Rock Art (SE1423681675)
 6.5km SSE 165° West Agra Carving 1 Rock Art (SE1406981627)
 6.7km SSE 158° Gollinglith Foot (West Agra) Standing Stone (Menhir) (SE149817)
 7.3km NE 37° St Oswald (East Hauxwell)* Ancient Cross (SE168937)
 8.3km SSE 147° Healey Stone Circles (Masham) Stone Circle (SE170810)
 9.4km W 259° Burton Moor* Ancient Village or Settlement (SE03118604)
 9.9km SE 132° Fearby Cross (Masham) Ancient Cross (SE1984081273)
 10.3km SE 142° Fearby, Masham* Stone Circle (SE188798)
 10.5km SSE 151° Swinton Druid's Temple* Modern Stone Circle etc (SE1746478713)
 11.1km ESE 104° St Mary (Thornton Watlass)* Ancient Cross (SE2324585265)
 11.7km SSE 147° Skew Skell Well* Holy Well or Sacred Spring (SE1876078084)
 11.9km W 279° St Matthew's Well (Carperby)* Holy Well or Sacred Spring (SE0065689756)
 11.9km W 279° Carperby Cross* Ancient Cross (SE0063189729)
 12.2km SE 133° Berry Well* Holy Well or Sacred Spring (SE2140479628)
 12.5km SE 125° St Mary (Masham)* Ancient Cross (SE2266080651)
 13.1km NW 318° Harkerside Moor circle* Stone Circle (SE035976)
 13.5km W 280° Carperby Stone Circle* Stone Circle (SD99009013)
 13.6km NNW 339° Forty Acres 03 (Stelling) Rock Art (NZ07580058)
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