St. Helen's Well: near Friarshead, between Eshton and Winterburn

Diana Kaneps
 JOURNAL 
 2011 
 North Craven 
 Heritage Trust 

Springs, where the ground water issues in the form of a direct flow, from between rocks, or where the water wells up and bubbles from the ground, were sacred places in Celtic pre-Roman times. St. Helen’s well near Friarshead House could have originally been a healing spring, presided over by a Celtic goddess, then Christianised by the Romans, and later added to. Helena, after whom the well is presumably named, was the mother of Constantine the Great, who made Christianity the religion of the Roman world. Helena claimed to have found Christ’s cross, or part of it, and was appropriated as a British saint.

Water was considered a female element, being essential to life, and was contained in womb symbols such as a well, font, or cauldron - the well being a potent image, as the water emerges from the deep belly of the Earth mother. Ideas do not die, they become transformed, as in this baptismal quote, ‘From the womb of this Divine font, may you come forth a new person’.

Three stone heads were at some time part of the well structure. The human head as the centre of spiritual power had overwhelming significance for Celtic peoples. In the Middle Ages the soul was believed to reside in the head. There have been discovered reliefs, each containing three fertility goddesses, at holy wells, in Odenwald in Germany, and at Housesteads, Northumberland.

My first visit to St. Helen’s well was sixty years ago at the age of ten, on my bicycle, along with my father on his. On arriving at the place we had to climb the banking and wall to reach the water. The circular pool had a metal fence on the field side, and a few saplings surrounded the clear shallow water, which bubbled gently to the surface. My father instructed me to walk along the masonry onto the middle head, then bend down, place my hand into the cold water, and feel the face. He said that no-one knew where the carvings had come from, but they were thought to be from a local church. (See illustration).

There is a tale that the Scots burned six local churches, but left St. Andrew’s at Gargrave, because St. Andrew was their patron saint. There is a beautiful free standing font or piscina which was discarded from St. Andrew’s and rescued by Sir Mathew Wilson of Eshton Hall, so maybe the heads were also found discarded. There is a solid, moss-covered square block of stone remaining in the water. It is definitely Christian, having an equal armed cross on top, four inverted V’s on the sides, and what looks like four heads on the corners. These heads are exceptionally worn, and were it not for a similar size of stone, with the same kind of protuberances, on a free standing piscina inside St. Mary le Ghyll at Barnoldswick, then they might not be recognized as such.

On the roadside there used to be a stone horse trough, which filled with the pool’s overflow, before it went down the drain and into the beck. In the summer of 1996 at a time of drought one head was photographed followed by the disappearance of all three in April 2004. The trough too has gone.

Recently I revisited St. Helen’s well and saw many changes. It is evident where thieves entered to steal the masonry. The stones could not have been lifted by one man. There is now a public opening in the wall, with the obligatory health and safety notice. The pool is no longer calm, as a strong spout of water erupts continually. There has been involvement by the Water Board, so maybe there lies an explanation. Prior to the heads being stolen, I suggested to the relevant Authority that they should be raised and photographed. I was vehemently rebuked. A lesson to be learned there I think.

St. Helen’s well has in one way come full circle. It is now adorned with votive offerings, ribbons and objects hung on branches. Coins and a potted plant are also there. The water was believed to have healing properties, and one man who was known to have shingles used to go from Gargrave to bathe his eyes and ease the discomfort.

Notes from Whitaker’s History of Craven, 1878

‘To this well anciently belonged a chapel, with the same dedication; for in the year 1429, a commission relating to the manor of Flasby sat ‘in Capella beate Elene de Essheton’; and on the opposite side of the road to the spring is a close called the Chapel Field. This was probably not unendowed, for I met with certain lands in Areton, anciently called Seynt Helen Lands.’

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