St. Winifred's Well

Holywell (Treffynnon) is "the town of the Holy Well." There is good reason to believe that at the time of the poet of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, it may have been also referred to as Holy Head (Sir Gawain may have stayed at Basingwerk Abbey at the bottom of the Greenfield Valley before he found his way across the Dee to the Wirral Peninsular; that there is another town called Holyhead, far to the west has confused generations of scholars and critics unfamiliar with the local history). The Greenfield Valley is important in Welsh industrial history and its Heritage Trail is well worth a visit, as are the remains of Basingwerk Abbey, founded in ll3l as a Savignac Monastery but mostly demolished as a Cistercian House at the Reformation with its parts scattered throughout the area to be relocated in many local churches.

But it is to the holy well at the upper end of the Valley, just before the steep climb up the town itself, that we make our pilgrimage. The well itself, formed from a mountain spring, is housed inside the shrine of St. Winifrid (Gwenffrwd or Gwenfrewi) regarded as the finest surviving example of a medieval holy well in Britain. The legend of St. Winifrid is responsible for the erection of the present shrine on a site chosen originally chosen by St. Beuno for a chapel. When a local chieftain named Caradoc attempted to rape Beuno's niece Gwenffrwd, she ran to the chapel for sanctuary but though she failed to reach the doors, her refusal to submit to her pursuer caused him to cut off her head in his rage. The head rolled down the hillside, a spring miraculously appearing where it came to rest in a deep hollow. Beuno reattached Gwenffrwd's head, and she lived to become an abbess and later, a saint. Would-be rapist Prince Caradoc, meanwhile, fell dead under the saint's curse.

The well formed from the spring then became a place of pilgrimage visited by, among others, Richard I, to pray for his Crusade; Henry V (both before and after his famous victory at Agincourt), who came on foot from Shrewsbury; and King James II, who came here to pray for a son (a prayer which was granted by the birth of the Old Pretender). It is bitterly ironic that the success of his prayer led to James's deposition from the throne, for the British Constitution would not allow a Catholic heir.

In the twelfth Century, the religious house at Shrewsbury (where she had spent the remainder of her days as abbess) acquired Winifred's relics, and her shrine there became a popular place of pilgrimage, but at The Dissolution, her bones were scattered by the agents of Henry VIII (The one finger that survived was then taken to Powys Castle and from thence to Rome, only returning to Britain in l852). In the early l5th Century, the Pope granted the right to sell special indulgences to all pilgrims visiting Holywell to the monks at Basingwerk, who took charge of the well up until the Reformation.

About l490, Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and mother of Henry VII had a new two-storied chapel built over the star-shaped well, which is covered by an ornate vault and surrounded by a processional passage. A long bathing pool fed by the spring lies outside, in the courtyard. Just below the surface of the water you can see the stone of St. Beuno upon which he taught Winifred or upon which he bade farewell to her. In the valley below the well are a number of stones said to be stained with Winifred's blood or covered with a fragrant red moss miraculously renewed each year.

St. Winifred's Well is the only shrine in Britain that has an unbroken tradition of pilgrimage since the early Medieval period. Because the well was regarded as medicinal as much as religious, the chapel escaped the merciless destruction of the Reformation itself. On Nov 3, l629, St. Winifred's Day, over fifteen hundred people gathered at the chapel, and it has continued to be an important place of pilgrimage for Roman Catholics ever since, despite many attempts to stop the practice, including the shutting down of many of the town's hotels and hostels by Chester justices in l637. At that time, the walls of the chapel were also whitewashed and the safety railings around the well removed (more than one historian has queried -- "so that pilgrims might accidentally drown?")

Only two years after King James's visit in l686, the holy well and the chapel in which it was housed were ransacked by supporters of the ardent Protestant William III. It was once again restored, and in l774 was visited by the well-known literary critic Dr. Samuel Johnson on his journey around North Wales. The learned, but prudish doctor remarked on the indecency of a woman bathing there, yet the popularity of the shrine continued to attract pilgrims, over one thousand visiting during the first year of a new hospice opened in the l880's. During the last one hundred years, the shrine has received a new lease of life after centuries of Protestantism (and therefore neglect) mainly from visits by Irish immigrants residing in Liverpool (only an hour's road journey distant).

Since World War II, the automobile and the motor coach (and up until the early 60's the railroad) have brought many more pilgrims (mainly from Liverpool and Manchester, but some from all parts of Britain and the Continent) to partake of the healing waters and to undergo the ritual of passing three times through the inner well. This custom may date from a Celtic practice of triple immersion or it may result from a prayer written by a l2th Century prior of Shrewsbury who cautioned that more than one immersion may be necessary for a cure. The author once met a legless man who was on the side of the road begging a ride to the well to be cured; the poor fellow had ultimate faith in his quest.

For those inclined to believe in such, the waters at Holywell contain miraculous healing powers. For many centuries, these waters came from an unfailing spring, gushing mightily from the earth, producing three thousand gallons a minute at a constant temperature of 50 degrees. Because of extensive mining operations, however, on nearby Halkyn Mountain in the first quarter of this century, the author's great uncle, a Holywell surveyor and civil engineer (whose first name was Caradoc, incidentally), warned the Holywell Town Council that the waters feeding the spring were likely to be diverted and that the well would dry up. This is what consequently happened, so that today's pilgrims see a bubbling spring fed from the town's municipal water supply forced through an artfully concealed pipe at the base of the well.

Despite the source of today's holy well, the sanctity of St. Winifred's remains, and though it is not housed in an elegant or great cathedral, it is a vital stopping place on our pilgrimage to the sacred places of Wales (The author himself was baptized with the same water in the Church of St. James, on the site of the original chapel of St. Beuno erected just above St. Margaret's Chapel).

Only a few miles from the English border, the pleasantly-situated little town of Holywell is also a most fitting place to end our journey to the sacred places of Wales which began in Newport, at the cathedral of St. Woolos. From Holywell, it is approximately one hour by modern highway to Manchester Airport.