St Brendan's Well, Kilmux

Dedication: Saint Brendan

Location: Kilmux

Coordinates: 56.229004N, -3.0330568W

Grid reference: NO360045

Heritage designation: none

Little is known about St Brendan's Well, which appears, from Ordnance Survey maps, to have simply materialised from nowhere several decades ago. St Brendan, commonly called "Brendan the Navigator", was an Irish saint from the 5th and 6th centuries. He travelled to several places along the west coast of Scotland and Wales, although he is not known to have ever ventured further into Scotland, and certainly would not have visited Fife, on the east coast. The well's dedication to St Brendan is therefore more likely to have come from elsewhere.

A medieval chapel, the dedication of which is unknown, once existed only a few hundred metres away from the well, next to "Chapel Brae", which is marked on Ordnance Survey maps. According to the OS namebook of 1854, the foundations of this chapel were removed in 1814, and of the chapel no trace now remains. It is quite possible that this chapel was originally dedicated to St Brendan, and the well may have served as a source of water for baptisms. It was common in medieval Scotland for small chapels to have associated wells, which often shared the same dedication.

On Ordnance Survey maps, the well that is, on today's maps, named as "St Brendan's Well" was not marked at all until the 1960s. Before then, the location of the well was occupied by the site of a quarry. It is possible that the spring was impacted by quarrying work, and only began to produce water again after the quarry was abandoned, which would explain why it was not marked on early maps.

It does not appear that St Brendan's Well, or, as it is otherwise called, "Brandy Well", has ever been mentioned or written about by local historians, or, in fact, anybody. The only description of it that I could find is the remarks of OS surveyors in 1962:

At NO 3605 0453 near a cistern supplying water to the estate of Durie, is a spring known as St Brendan's Well or Brandy Well, traditionally a holy well associated with a monastic establishment and possibly connected with the chapel.

As it is still marked and named on Ordnance Survey maps to this day, the well presumably still exists.

Access:

St Brendan's Well is located on private land.