Lady’s Well

I do like this secluded little place - Lady’s Well at Holystone - and I have probably blipped it before. It started life as a natural spring by the side of a Roman road that linked the fort of Bremenium in Redesdale to the Northumberland Coast. The Romans used it as a watering place and probably made it into a shrine and built the low stone retaining wall around the spring’s outflow to create the large rectangular pool of clear water. 

The well is associated with two saints - St Ninian and St Paulinus, but there is no evidence for the baptisms they were supposed to have carried out there. It was later, in the early 12th century, that the name Lady’s Well came into being, when an Augustinian priory of canonesses dedicated to the Virgin Mary was founded at Holystone and the nuns gained ownership of the well. Nothing of the priory remains now. 

Aside from its spiritual significance the Lady’s Well has a very practical purpose; the well is used to supply water to Holystone village. 

The track leading up to the Well is one of the few places where one is walking on an actual bit of Roman road. The setts are clearly visible and it seems very strange to be walking on what was laid down so long ago. 

Extras
Tea at Alnwick Station aka Barter Books
Mural (life size paintings of writers) and train at Barter Books 

Books were bought!