HOLYWELL, the largest and most prosperous town in Flintshire, occupies
the brow and summit of an eminence near the coast of the Chester channel,
or estuary of the Dee. It is a respectable, busy place, possessing some
commercial importance, and has been made contributory with Flint, and the
other ancient boroughs, in returning one member to the imperial
parliament. Its manufactures consist in the smelting and forging of ores
and metals raised in the mineral districts of the county; and very
extensive works are conducted here of copper, lead, brass, and
calamine,—to which have lately been annexed factories of cotton and silk.
The parish church is situated at the foot of the steep hill on which the
principal streets are erected, and so overhung, that the toll of a bell,
if suspended in the tower, would be inaudible in the town. This singular
and accidental inconvenience is remedied in the following manner:—A
person employed for the purpose carries a good heavy bell, suspended by a
strap passing across his shoulders, and falling against a cushion that
covers over one of his knees. At every advance of the cushioned knee the
bell tolls, and in this way the parishioners are noticed, the length of
the bell-toller’s tour being equal to the usual time allowed for
summoning a congregation in the accustomed manner.
The English name Holywell, and the Welsh “Tre-ffynnon,” are derived from
the celebrated well of Winifred, a saint and martyr, who flourished some
time in the seventh century. The fabulous biography of this religious
person is extremely singular, and entirely identified with the history of
the well. Like the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, or the mythology of
ancient Greece and Rome, the story of St. Winifred undoubtedly possesses
some more rational interpretation; but it is a labyrinth from which a
clue is yet wanting to enable those involved to effect their escape.
The legendary history assures us that Winifred was the daughter of
Thewith, a powerful lord of this country in the seventh century, and
niece to the pious St. Beuno. Her uncle having obtained permission from
her father to build a church here, took Winifred, who is represented as
“devout, young, and beautiful,” under his protection, to assist him in
his religious exercises. In this district there lived at the same period
Cradocus, the son of King Alen, who, becoming enamoured of the charms of
this beautiful young lady, determined to obtain her hand in marriage. It
was on a Sunday morning that the young prince first declared the ardour
of his affection to Winifred, while her father and his retinue were
attending church; but the lady, making a modest excuse for her abrupt
retirement, escaped from his presence and ran towards the church.
Cradocus, enraged at the rejection of his suit, pursued her to the brow
of the bill, and there, drawing his sword, severed her head from her
body. The head immediately rolled down the hill, and up to the altar in
the church around which her father and her relatives were assembled; and
from the spot where it rested a clear and rapid fountain instantly gushed
up. St. Beuno hastily caught up the bleeding head, and placing it upon
the body they forthwith reunited, no trace of separation remaining but a
little white line encircling the neck. As for the assassin, he instantly
dropped down dead upon the spot; but the legend does not decide whether
the earth swallowed him up, or his Satanic majesty bore his impious
corpse away. The waters of the spring, notwithstanding the reunion of
the head and trunk, continued to issue with unabated rapidity; the sides
of the well became clothed with a delicious scented moss, and the pebbles
at the bottom were tinctured with a few drops of the martyr’s blood.
Winifred survived her decapitation fifteen years, and retiring to the
monastery of Gwytherin, in Denbighshire, there accepted the veil from the
hands of St. Elerius, and died abbess of that religious house.
Ecclesiastic historians acknowledge that she was interred there; and four
upright stones, forming a continued right line, on one of which the name
Winifred is graven in ancient characters, are still shown in the
churchyard at Gwytherin as the grave of this celebrated virgin martyr.
According to Dugdale, a sober author, the bones of St. Winifred were
exhumed and translated from Gwytherin to the abbey of Shrewsbury in 1136,
by Robertus Salopiensis, who was abbot there, and who wrote an account of
her life and miracles.
The well, as it now appears, is enclosed in a polygonal basin. It is
covered by a temple, built by Margaret, the mother of Henry the Seventh,
in that profuse style of ornament which prevailed amongst the
ecclesiastic edifices of that age. The roof is of stone, richly carved
and groined, the legend of the saint being represented in the different
compartments between the ribs. From the angles of the curb-stone,
enclosing the water, light clustered columns rise, supporting a beautiful
canopy adorned with tracery, suspended exactly over the well. The arms
of the Stanleys, and of other noble families allied to them, were
inserted in different panels, but all these devices are now indistinct,
though the little temple itself is in excellent preservation. An image
of the Virgin Mary occupied a niche opposite the side entrance, but this
has long since disappeared. The water appears to gush up with all the
rapidity the legend would insinuate, and to possess all the transparency
there implied. The sweet scented moss is called by botanists jungermania
asplenoides, and the drops of blood upon the pebbles below are also a
vegetable production, called byssus jolithus. To every visiter who
enters, the water certainly presents an appearance of great freshness, as
if the fountain had only just gushed forth that moment; and the rapidity
of its ebullition must necessarily be extraordinary, one hundred tons of
water being ejected every minute. The overflow passes through an arch,
beneath the front wall of the temple, into an oblong bath, surrounded by
an ambulatory, and protected by an iron balustrade. Here pilgrims were
formerly suffered to immerse themselves, in expectation of miraculous
results; and, that credulity has some sincere votaries, is testified by
the barrows of the impotent and the crutches of the lame, which hang as
votive offerings from the temple’s roof. In a second story is a small
chapel, now desecrated into a poor school. This part of the building has
been decided, by a decree in chancery, to be private property, but the
well and its interesting enclosures are free to the public.
The benefits derived by the infirm pilgrims, who formerly visited this
holy well, may be problematical; but the commercial advantages conferred
upon the town and neighbourhood by their proximity to the fountain are
certain and distinct. The quantity of water which issues at the moment
of its escape from the enclosure, is found sufficient to set in motion
the wheel of a corn mill: immediately after, four cotton factories are
erected on its stream, followed in quick succession by a copper smelting
house and brass foundry, coppersmithy, wire mill, a calamine calcinary,
and other factories: all established on the current of this useful river,
whose course does not exceed a mile in length from the fountain to the
sea, and whose only supply is the holy well of St. Winifred.