St Catherine's holy well
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Description
This is the 'lost' St Catherine's holy well in Eskdale, Cumbria. It's long been known there was or had been such a holy well in Eskdale. It was known in the 19th century and had apparently been used for centuries as a source of clean spring water, the water also being attributed with healing properties. At one time it attracted many pilgrims and even had a hermit living in a cave nearby. It was neglected once tap water arrived though was excavated by amateur archaeologist Mary Fair in the 1920s. But it became overgrown and lost, many wondering where it might have been located. Fortunately local farmer Noel Baines came to the rescue. His family had been baptised with water from the well for many generations. His grandson had been baptised there just 12 years ago (Noel had to clear a path to get to it even then). On March 29th this year (2010) he took the local history group to its location and it's now hoped to fully restore the well. If you want to visit it, walk east on the path from St Catherine's church and after about half a mile you'll see a sign saying "Permissive path to How's Wood". Take that path and under a rock escarpment you'll see a lot of yellow gorse. The well is behind that, with a silver birch tree standing next to it. There are other pictures in my http://www.flickr.com/photos/alancleaver/sets/72157623768282328/">St Catherine well set which show the location of the well. This picture was taken with a wide angle lens - it is only about five feet across - but be careful, it's about four feet deep! -
Owner
Alan Cleaver -
Source
Flickr (Flickr) -
License
What does this mean? Attribution License
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Further information
Link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/11121568@N06/4490493412/
Resource type: Image
Added by: Edmund Anon
Last modified: 6 years, 1 month ago
Viewed: 686 times
Picture Taken: 2010-04-04T12:40:04 -
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