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Tours > Wales > Holywell, Winifred's Well, Basingwerk, Greenfield Valley
Holywell, Winifred's Well, Basingwerk
and Greenfield Valley
 Holywell (Treffynnon: Tray Funnon) is "the town of the Holy Well." For over 1,000 years, the well at Holywell was renowned throughout Britain and beyond for its healing powers, a reputation that survived the Reformation. During the author's boyhood, a large collection of crutches and canes left behind as a testament to the water's curative powers was a prominent feature of the site (they have since been removed).
The Greenfield Valley, just below Holywell is important in Welsh industrial history and its Heritage Trail is well worth a visit, as are the remains of Basingwerk Abbey, founded in 1131 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. A working farm to delight children of all ages is also located next to the Abbey. For literature buffs, this is most certainly the "Holyhead" referred to as the place in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where Gawain began his crossing of the River Dee.
The holy well is located at the upper end of the Valley, just before the steep climb up to the town itself. Formed from a mountain spring, the well is housed inside the shrine of St. Winifred (Gwenffrwd: Gwen Frood or Gwenfrewi: Gwen Vrewee) regarded as the finest surviving example of a medieval holy well in Britain. The legend of St. Winifred is responsible for the erection of the present shrine on a site 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 a rage. The head rolled down the hillside, a spring miraculously appeared 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' deposition from the throne, for the British Constitution would not allow a Catholic heir.
In the 12th 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 1852.) In the early 15th century, the Pope granted the Basingwerk monks the right to sell special indulgences to all pilgrims visiting Holywell.
About 1490, 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 had 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. On November 3, 1629, St. Winifred's Day, over 1,500 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 1637. 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' visit in 1686, 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 1774 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 1,000 visited during the first year of a new hospice which was opened in the 1880's. During the last one hundred years, the shrine has received a new lease on 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 12th century prior of Shrewsbury who cautioned that more than one immersion may be necessary for a cure).
Holywell can be reached from Chester on the A55: it is about four miles northwest of Flint.
Next Stop: Caerwys
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