HOME - WALES - MONMOUTHSHIRE

Ffynnon Faughan, St Maughans

Many early Welsh saints are said to have been related to King Arthur, and the 6th century St Meugan is one of them. Many more minor saints are believed to have been written into Arthur's family tree by medieval hagiographers who wished to elevate their societal status, but Meugan was not in need of such a promotion, as he was already a direct descendent of the King of Glamorgan. Indeed, Meugan's education at St Illtyd's famous monastery in Llantwit Major shows that he possessed some importance in society. Perhaps this influence aided him in his efforts as a missionary, which he worked as across Wales, founding churches in both Llanfeugan in Brecknockshire, and here in St Maughans, as well as leaving behind a very popular holy well in Llanfair Nant Gwyn, Pembrokeshire. His medieval cult was therefore present in a wide range of places, although none of them seem to have been connected with each other, so the cult was, overall, quite disjointed.

In the parish of St Maughans itself, the holy well was certainly the focal point of St Meugan's localised cult. Although it was clearly of some fame after the Reformation, the sole historical reference that I have been able to find to its existence takes the form of a note published in Edward Lhuyd's Parochialia, in or around 1700. This note was written by a Mr Thomas Evans, and mentioned two holy wells in the vicinity: Ffynnon Faughan, and nearby Ffynnon Fihangel, at Skenfrith; the information that he provided about St Meugan's Well is particularly interesting:

Evidently, the well had a direct link to the parish church, especially as the local "Roman Catholicks" seem to have been so keen to be buried in the churchyard because of its proximity to Ffynnon Faughan. This suggests that the spring would have been located quite near to the church, otherwise burial in the parish churchyard surely would not have been enough for locals who wished to be interred close to the well. Unfortunately, I have found no explicit descriptions of the well's exact, or even vague, location, and even the Historic Environment Record expresses confusion by boasting two separate, almost identical entries for the well, both of which place it at a slightly different location. The only remaining possible indicator of the site's situation is the 1840s tithe schedule of the parish, on which I have found six field-names containing the word "well" (there are none containing "ffynnon"), one of which may have been named after Ffynnon Faughan:

1. A water source to the west of St Maughan's Church, at SO4599017096, located within a field named "Well Mead". The field directly adjoining this to the east is also called "Well Meadow". Historic Ordnance Survey maps mark a public footpath leading directly from the church to this well, which still survives today, so the site clearly had some significance, if only as a conveniently located water source. It is located only 100 metres from the church, by far the closest out of all six possible sites.
2. A well marked on historic OS maps at SO4714916712, between two fields named "Lower Well Field" and "Well Field", near to the hamlet of Maybole, over a thousand metres from St Maughan's Church. According to OS maps, this well no longer exists.
3. A field named "Well Meadow" on the tithe schedule, located at roughly SO4573518534. Historic OS maps show no wells in this field, which is also over a thousand metres from St Maughan's Church.
4. A well located in the middle of a field named "Well Field" at SO4575117649, 600 metres from St Maughan's Church. Historic Ordnance Survey maps do not mark any footpaths leading to it, and it has now vanished from modern OS maps.
5. A well located at SO4664617455, in a field named "Little Well Mead", 600 metres from the church. It survives as a spring.
6. A well situated at SO4714417670, near Blackmoor Farm, on a public footpath. It is over a thousand metres from the church.

Out of the above candidates, numbers 2, 3 and 6 almost certainly cannot be St Maughan's Well because of their distance from the church. This leaves 1, 4 and 5 as potential sites of Ffynnon Faughan; out of these remaining, number 4 can be discounted, as there is no clear route or path linking it to the church, and the same goes for number 5. This leaves 1, which is almost undoubtedly Ffynnon Faughan, simply because of its proximity to St Maughan's Church, its location on a public footpath linking the two sites, and the fact that some sort of pool (according to OS maps) has clearly been created there at some point, perhaps the remnant of a medieval bathing pool or bath.

Copyright 2025 britishholywells.co.uk