Holy Well, St Albans

St Alban, the earliest recorded British martyr, is said to have been killed on Holywell Hill in the 3rd or 4th century, after refusing to renounce his Christian beliefs. A shrine to him was soon constructed, and one is known to have existed for certain at St Albans as early the 6th century, when it was mentioned by the famed historian, St Gildas. It was of such importance that St Germanus of Auxerre is reputed to have travelled to it in the 5th century, and it seems to have only grown in popularity over time. According to the legend of the saint's martyrdom, Alban, being thirsty, prayed for water to appear on Holywell Hill, just moments before his execution. An authentic medieval account of this portion of the story can be found in the Early South-English Legendary, dating from the late medieval period:

Opon an hul huy wenden an heiȝ : ase huy weren a-signet to
þis holie Man seint Albon : to þe deþe do.
Seint Albon wilnede aftur water : þare ope þe hulle on heiȝ;
he bi-heold þat þare ne miȝhte : no watur come þare neiȝ:
Ore louerd he bad with guode heorte : þat he sende is grace
þat som water moste to him come : in þat ilke place.
Ore louerd heorde is bone : þare anon-riȝhte
bi-fore alle þe tormentores : in heore alre siȝhte:

For þo he hadde i-seid is oresun : and ore louerd i-bede,
þare sprong out of þat heiȝe [hul] : a fair welle in þulke stude,
Of al-so guod water as ani miȝhte beo - : þat ȝuyt lastethþ, ich wene

Translation: Upon a hill they went on high as they were assigned to
this holy man St Alban to the death do [to kill].
St Alban wished for water there upon the hill on high;
he beheld that there would not water come nigh:
Our Lord he bade with good heart that he send his grace
that some water must to him come in that place.
Our Lord heard his prayer there immediately
before all the tormentors in sight of them all:

For when he had said his prayer : and our lord prayed,
There sprung out of that high [hill] a fair well in that very place,
Of as good water as any might be - that still lasts, I believe

Although it is quite possible that there was once a holy well, perhaps dedicated to St Alban, located on top of this hill, the only medieval references to its existence appear in accounts of the saint's martyrdom. Of course, the name "Holywell Hill" suggests that there probably was some form of holy well located on the summit of this hill; if there ever was, however, then its location is long lost.

It is worth noting that the deep well at TL1463106700, located in what is now a modern housing estate, is almost certainly not the authentic well of St Alban, if there ever was one. This deep well was once situated in the grounds of Holywell House, an old manor house that was altered several times before being completely demolished in 1837. In the late 18th century, when Lady Georgiana Spencer, who owned the house, was remodelling the grounds, she built a new housing for what she believed was the "sacred fount" that had given the house its name. Apart from the name of the house, which most probably is simply derived from the name of the neighbouring hill (in fact, there is another building on the hill itself that bears the same name), there is no documentary evidence predating the late 18th century that this really was the location of a medieval holy well. Nonetheless, by the early 1800s, it was commonly accepted that this was a holy well, and Frederick Lake Williams, in part 2 of his Historical and Topographical Description of the Municipium of Ancient Verulam (1822), claimed that the well was still "held in some estimation for its purity and salubrious qualities".

The Hertfordshire Historic Environment Record (Historic Environment Records, of course, cannot be trusted for accurate information) holds the position that this well was built, apparently from scratch, by Lady Spencer, the evidence for this being the fact that the well is not marked on Hare's 17th century map of St Albans, or on the Andrews and Wren map of 1766. Perhaps older maps cannot be completely relied upon for this information, however, as Thomas Godman's 1822 Plan of St Albans does not mark the well either, despite the fact that it certainly existed by that time. Indeed, the deep well may have existed in medieval times (it is impossible to tell how old this well actually is: some sources claim it contains medieval stonework, others that it contains only 18th century stonework, and yet more that it dates completely from the 19th century), and archaeological excavations have determined that this area was quite industrial in medieval times, so this deep well may have supplied medieval workers with water.

Regardless of its age, however, this deep well is undoubtedly not a medieval holy well, for two reasons: firstly, it is located at the foot of Holywell Hill, whilst all versions of the authentic medieval legend clearly state that the spring appeared on its summit (a modern, post-medieval legend has been created to compensate for this, namely that Alban's head rolled down the hill and fell into a well at the bottom, thus making it holy); and secondly, all versions of the legend also clearly state that a spring appeared on the hill, not a deep well, which is not supplied by a spring at all. Nonetheless, this deep well has been recently restored, and can still be seen in the centre of a housing estate.