ALL OUR Controversy springs from the story of the holy well of Stainland
LOCAL HISTORIAN CHAIRMAN OF MOUNT COMMUNITY GROUP IN HUDDERSFIELD, SHEDS SOME LIGHT ON THE MYSTERY OF HOLY WELLS
THE mystery of the ‘well’ that gave its name to Holywell Green in Stainland has long been a source of local controversy, for there are many wells in the area. However, one candidate stands out above all others and that is the holy well at Helen Hill in Jagger Green.
Wells already had a reputation for sanctity long before the coming of Christianity. The nearby location of the Celtic Lee Hill encampment and the Roman fort of Slack also implies that the well, supplied by its spring, had a pre-Christian use and was venerated by our ancestors. Evidence suggests that ponds and springs were seen to act as portals into the next life.
From the Wakefield court records there is no doubt that the well existed in the 1200s – and probably long before. Surnames found in manor records, in the Stainland area of the 1200s also allude to the existence of a holy well. A Henry de
Sacro Fonte de Stanyland (Henry of the Sacred Well of Stainland) was living in the area in the 1200s.
It appears that the well was known as St Helen’s well and gave its name to a close-by medieval chapel or chantry that bore the name St Elyn’s or St Helen’s. Chantries were popular in medieval times. Catholic priests would say masses (in chantry chapels) for the dead souls of wealthy land owners who bequeathed donations of land or money to the church in their wills.
It is likely that the chapel was named after the well, rather than the other way round. St Helen, the wife of Roman Emperor Constantine, was a popular patron of holy wells in early Christian Britain.
Mention of the well and its chapel was later made in 1597, during the last stages of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign, when the chapel was described as being in a state of decay. In 1548 the Council of Edward V1 dissolved chantries on grounds that they encouraged superstition. The Government was bankrupt and needed another source of plunder after the Dissolution of the Monasteries . A survey of chantries was undertaken - in order to destroy or close them down. The Reformation dealt harshly with holy wells and all superstitious things.
In 1775, the famous Halifax historian, John Watson, came across the remnants of the Helen Hill well site. A cottage was said to stand on the site of the ancient chapel/ chantry of St Helen or possibly integrated into it. On one wall of the standing cottage there had once had a large stone with a cross (perhaps a surviving wall of the chantry) but this cross was no longer visible to Watson in 1775. He noted that the chantry had once been a place of great account.
Watson also added that the well was still there (in 1775) and by it was a rectangular stone structure with a large cistern containing three separate compartments (basins). One basin had a pump in it so water could be used for domestic use or drunk. He went on to say that the water was still flowing into each basin with “ever-flowing, copious amounts of cold and clear water as a curative for various ailments of the body”.
The veneration of wells survived in the folk memory of this area. Interestingly Watson stated that Catholics pilgrims still came to the well in the late 1700s to partake of its health giving waters.
Local artist John Horner, in the early 1800s, sketched the same well basin that Watson saw a generation earlier. It shows the old well basin slipping into graceful decline. The stone trough had cracked and was leaking but wild flowers grew in profusion around the well.
The Victorian fashion for spawaters saw a resurgence in the popularity of the well and its spring, when crowds would gather at such springs on the morning of Spaw Sunday (the first Sunday of May) to “take the waters” for therapeutic purposes. It is likely that the Helen Hill well was restored in 1843.
The present trough at Shaw Park with the inscription “Hollywell Improved 1843” is most likely the new replacement trough of the Victorian era that moved first to St Helen’s
Square and later to the entrance of Shaw Park where it can be seen today.
Interestingly the “Holy Well Inn” on Station Road, Stainland, has a well that connects to subterranean tunnels in the area. However, its only connection to the original holy well was its newly-acquired name in 1977, the “Holy Well Inn”, before it closed in 2012.
Did the well spring water have healing powers and cure people of their ills? Pilgrims thought so.
Certainly in the past well water had minerals and if drunk regularly had beneficial qualities. Remember most people drank contaminated water in the past.
Today some hold that the area of the original well at St Helen’s Hill is waste land, covered in weeds and nettles and the stone well basin has been destroyed. Others maintain that the spring, well and basin can still be found.
Modern day walkers on the packhorse track that takes them past Outlane mink farm on their way to Jagger Green Dean often curse the mud and water beneath their feet. Little do they know that this trickling water was at one time deemed to be holy, and probably fed the holy well of fame.