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St Aldhelm's Well, Malmesbury

St Aldhelm, a 7th century bishop and missionary, was a close relative of King Ina of Wessex. According to the first volume of John Aikin and the Rev. William Enfield's General Biography (1799), he was born in Malmesbury itself, most probably in the early 600s. Aldhelm appears to have been one of the most learned British figures of his time, and was reportedly skilled in both Greek and Latin, as well as being a notable musician, and what the Biography described as "a poet of no mean merit"; indeed, he wrote a large number of scholarly works and letters during his lifetime. He was also a disciple of the Irish St Maildubh, the initial founder of either a small religious house or hermitage at Malmesbury (its exact function is described variously by different sources), which was later converted into Malmesbury Abbey by Aldhelm, who became its first abbot. Shortly afterwards, in 705, Aldhelm was selected by King Ina to take the role of Bishop of Sherborne, which was then a newly created diocese. Although he reputedly disliked this position, he is said to have sedulously travelled around his see, and it was during one of these travels that he unexpectedly died, of a sudden but fatal disease, in 709.

The saint is said to have breathed his last in the village church of Doulting, in Somerset, where his more famous holy well is located. However, his body was soon transported to Malmesbury Abbey, where it was interred, reputedly by St Egwin himself, in the chapel of St Michael. It is clear that Aldhelm's cult developed relatively quickly, with his relics holding such importance in the Abbey by the late 9th or early 10th century that he was, according to volume 1 of The History of the Antient Abbeys, Monasteries, Hospitals, Cathedral and Collegiate Churches, written by John Stevens in 1722, removed from his coffin and hidden in the chapter house for several years, out of "fear of the Danes and Barbarians".

By the late medieval period, Malmesbury boasted a variety of relics associated with the saint, including, if Camden's Britannia (1722) is to be believed, his "Pſalter", the robes "wherein he ſaid Maſs", and, most notably, an intriguing artefact known as "St Aldhelm's Bell", which John Aubrey, in his Natural History of Wiltshire, written in the late 17th century, claimed was believed to possess the power, when rang, to "drive away the thunder and lightning". Additionally, the Abbey is reputed to have possessed a garment that Aldhelm once "hung on a sun-beam" whilst meditating. Also central to Aldhelm's cult in Malmesbury was St Aldhelm's Fair, which, it was noted by Mackenzie E. C. Walcott (in The Mitred Benedictine Abbey of S. Aldhelm, published in 1876), originally lasted for five days, under a grant from King William I, before later being extended to eight days by Queen Matilda, to ensure that the festivities also covered the eve of Aldhelm's feast day, and the octave. It is interesting to note that, although there was some focus on St Aldhelm, with his shrine reportedly being processed through the streets, many of Malmesbury's medieval inhabitants seem to have used the fair as an excuse for less saintly activities, and a band of armed soldiers were employed by the town each year to maintain some sense of order; perhaps there is a reason why the majority of the celebrations appear to have taken place on St Aldhelm's Mead, located just outside the town. The fair had been discontinued by the late 19th century.

Regarding St Aldhelm's Well, which almost certainly would have been involved in the fair in some way, and would definitely have been visited by pilgrims to Aldhelm's shrine, very little is known, which is rather strange, given the fact that other facets of the saint's cult in Malmesbury are very well documented. The earliest reference that I have found to this holy well appears in the aforementioned Mitred Benedictine Abbey of S. Aldhelm (1876), by Mackenzie E. C. Walcott, in which it was stated that "S. Aldhelm's well will afford a cool drink to the pilgrim to the site of his hermitage". The sole other historical mention of the well that I have come across dates from 1912, when the journal of the Folklore Society reported that the spring "breaks out under a cottage just below the Abbey", and was then "still visit[ed] and revere[ed]" by Roman Catholics, according, at least, to the owner of the cottage itself.

Although there is no explicit historical record of the well's exact location, the National Heritage List for England confirms that it can be found at "the rear of No.42" Gloucester Street (a cottage that is indeed "just below the Abbey"), and describes it as "a shallow D-shaped pool fed from a spring" that is set "in a rough arched recess below the wall". Of course, the National Heritage List is not always accurate when it comes to information about a site's history, but the locations given by the database are rarely incorrect.

The well has never been marked on Ordnance Survey maps, but it is interesting to note that OS maps place the parish boundary at the rear of the houses on Gloucester Street, so it is quite likely that St Aldhelm's Well was once a boundary marker for the parish.

*Location approximate

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