St.Patrick’s well

Well, well ... well well well ...
Ask the fellow who strims the grass ... https://www.faber.co.uk/9780571340545-ask-the-fellows-who-cut-the-hay.html

When I came down to see Horizon Line yesterday I came prepared to camp ... just in case. It had taken a lot of effort to get going yesterday and I’m in post-camper adjustment phase. Camping is more effort and feels a bit more vulnerable. The weather was lovely so I headed out to the site I’d eyed up right on the bay at Bolton le Sands. Plenty of space but a bit noisy with the west coast mainline and road traffic noise so I barely slept at all. Then it rained heavily. I had seen the well on the map but thought I couldn’t face more holy well disappointment having got to the bottom of the barrel locally.
I was going to head home but it was so close and fearing excommunication from the holy well head honcho I thought I’d better at least try.
So, I walked to Hest Bank and picked up the Kendal/Lancaster canal and then put on my holy well antenna. It was so humid and tricky seeing the lie of the land from the canal path but I saw a promising boggy area in a field and then a very old stone gate-stone lost under brambles and ivy. I went through the obligatory impaling on barbed wire, fought through long wet grass (glad I’d put my jeans on) and hid from a farmer I could hear in a tractor in the next field and then scouted around the boggy ground looking for something, anything, that might be promising, but to no avail.
I returned to the path and decided to carry on to the next canal bridge to make sure I’d eliminated any other possibilities. Once there I came out at the farm and heard strimming. Should I? Can I summon the cheerful, ‘I’m just a bit of an odd person looking for a holy well ... as you do ...’ demeanour? Well, I’ve come this far. A poor profusely sweating young lad looked at me as if I was stark raving mad, looked confused, bewildered and a bit worried ... he looked over anxiously to a man on his mobile phone in the farm yard and gestured over to him.
I girded myself and headed over. Committed now I prefaced my introduction with, ‘I know this is a bit weird, but ...’
His face lit up and knew just what I was on about. He said that every few years he’ll get someone asking. His family had farmed there for about ninety years and once upon a time had wondered about bottling it. He gave me detailed instructions (back the way you’ve come, down a lane, go over a gate, across a field, over another gate and look out for some fenced off scrub and bushes, and don’t mind the cows (gulp), it’s not much to look at, he warned ... and off I went.
When I got there i found much more than I had expected. Proper stone housing and clearly somewhere that had been highly regarded once upon a time. It was hard to make out under all the brambles, mosses etc but I could hear the running water. More barbed wire impalement and I was in. I cleared some growth to take the photo and then the farmer came over and joined me. He had come to check the the extraction tank and showed me the flow saying it never varies, whether it has been raining heavily or as dry as it has been the flow rate remains the same and has always done. He has been told that it comes down from Ingleborough which would make sense especially that steady flow rate.
But why does it emerge here? Who knows ...
But legend has it that St Patrick who was shipwrecked in the Bay had got thirsty and struck his staff in the ground and lo and behold ... good for eyes and tasted good, clear, cool and fresh, but apart from the link below and a few bits and bobs I can find very little about it and frustratingly no sign of photos of how it might have looked ...
http://slyne-with-hest.org.uk/description.htm
Thanks to Jonathan the farmer.

It’s interesting to follow the line that starts at St.Patrick’s chapel and well at Heysham
https://www.blipfoto.com/entry/2293863249403183540
... to this well at Slyne and Hest
...to this one near Kendal
https://www.blipfoto.com/entry/2322485751884808881
... to Patterdale (St.Patrick’s dale) and St.Patrick’s well
https://www.blipfoto.com/entry/2145307733207812169