Hidden East Anglia:

Landscape Legends of Norfolk & Suffolk

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Aylsham, Norfolk: Once upon a time Aylsham was famed for its chalybeate spring (water containing iron salts) and the resultant spa founded around it. By the 1820s and 30s it had all but gone out of use, and now only a trickle of water remains to show where it had once been resorted to for the relief of asthma and other chronic ailments, at Spa Farm south of the town (TG192255).

Badley, Suffolk:  The Lady Well or 'Our Lady Well' (TM061552) is on private land in fields about ½ a mile south of the church, with a vague tradition that pilgrims journeyed there for its medicinal properties. Wellfield Covert is near by, and a tiny brook runs from it to join the river Gipping on the outskirts of Needham Market.

Brettenham, Norfolk: In Shadwell Park can be found St. Chad's Well (TL933830), but I can find no history or traditions about it.

Clare, Suffolk: According to the 15th century Cartulary of Clare Priory, "a spring in what was then a field in front of the house gave a supply of chalybeate water which was reckoned to have curative powers".

Source: Found on www.clare-uk.com/

Deopham, Norfolk: There was once a 'petrifying spring' at Deopham near Wymondham, into which anything that was dropped turned into solid stone.

Dunwich, Suffolk: A few yards across the road from the 1830 St. James' church (on the site of the old Leper Hospital of St. James) is a steep grassy bank, the southern edge of Leet Hill, where the townsfolk would gather to thrash out their policies and differences. At the base of the bank is an earthy hole with a short shallow channel running from it. This was St. James' Well (TM474706), a freshwater spring that supplied the lazar house.

Fakenham, Norfolk: I have a note that there were once five springs near the town, "one of them strongly chalybeate".

Fersfield, Norfolk: From St. Andrew's church "processions were usually made to a well or spring, about 60 yards from the north gate of the churchyard, at the foot of a hill, which is still called Tann's Well, a corruption of St. Anne's Well".

Source: John Chambers: 'A General History of the County of Norfolk' (Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green, 1829), Vol.1, p.125.

Flitcham-with-Appleton, Norfolk: A little south of the old church was "a curious spring called Holy Well".

Glemsford, Suffolk: Somewhere near Glemsford Bridge "There is also a spring....strong and unfailing sweet water and cold as well known in this locality as 'Holy Water' and frequently the thirsty labourer will go halfway across the field for draughts of this cold sweet water from this spring."

Source: The 'Bury & Norwich Post', 8/1/1851.

Hinderclay, Suffolk: Off Tuffen Lane, a little north-west of the village and close to Thelnetham church, is a spring known as St. Mary's Well, a healing spring said to be especially good for weak eyes.

Source:

Kelly's' Directory of Suffolk' (1929).

Hunstanton, Norfolk: In addition to the holy wells known in the legend of St. Edmund, the Old Hunstanton area is said to have once been home to a chalybeate spirng. 

Ipswich, Suffolk: Holywells Park on the east bank of the river Orwell as it flows through the centre of Ipswich was once supposedly named after the many springs that emerged there, and were frequented by pilgrims. However, the name actually derives from 'hollow well', rather than any sacred wells. But across the river, close to the Stoke area of Ipswich, there certainly was a 'holy well', recorded as 'Haligwille' in a boundary charter of 970. This spring was on a hillside at the former Fir Tree Farm (approx. TM136427), and may have been close to where the renowned hoard of golden Iron Age torcs were discovered in 1968.

Sources:

Allan Jobson: 'Portrait of Suffolk' (Robert Hale, 1973), p.60.

Robert Malster: 'Ipswich, An A to Z of Local History' (Wharncliffe Books, 2005), pp.74-5.

King's Lynn, Norfolk: Spring Wood (TF649222) can be found in the middle of a housing estate in the Lynn suburb of South Wootton, in the former hamlet of Reffley. Here are the scant remains of Reffley Temple, built in 1789 by the Reffley Brethren as a rendezvous for social gatherings, although the Brethren themselves are said to have started in Cromwell's time as a 'secret society' of Royalist sympathizers. A chalybeate spring arose here, and in 1756 an obelisk was erected in the middle of the spring's basin, dedicated to 'Bacchus and Venus, the gods of this place'. In the 1980s the temple was vandalized and pulled down, the obelisk removed for safekeeping, and the spring dried out. On one side of the obelisk was a curse, stating "Whosoever shall remove this or bid its removal, let him die the last of his race". 

Source:

http://homepages.tesco.net/~Paul.Okill/index.htm

Long Melford, Suffolk: Here was once another 'petrifying spring' at Cranmore Green, which turned objects into stone.

Lowestoft, Suffolk: Basket Wells (TM545940) were two springs given to the town by two maiden sisters, Elizabeth and Katherine, who are said to have lived in the Old Maids' Chamber, a room above the south porch of St. Margaret's church. They had the wells dug at their own expense for the use of the townsfolk, on a small triangular plot of land known as the Bleach, a little to the east beyond the old railway line. This was a drying-ground, where old ladies could wash and hang out their linen on poles stretched across the green. The wells were filled in in 1932, but allotments on the site are still quite damp and muddy. The name of the wells is said to be from the sisters' names - Bess and Kate.

Source:

Edmund Gillingwater: 'An Historical Account of the Ancient Town of Lowestoft' (1790, reprinted by A. E. Murton, 1897).

North Lopham, Norfolk: A well said to have been dug over 1000 years ago is behind Fern Cottage on the main road at North Lopham, and is one of the ''Seven Wonders of the Lophams' (another is the Ox-Foot Stone.) The well is about 25 feet deep and said to never run dry, its level remaining constant whatever the weather. The owner (back in the 1970s) said that when there was a drought in the area many years before, it managed to cater for the whole village without diminishing the supply by one drop, and that travellers once used to stop by just to taste the water.

Source: 'South Norfolk News', 27/6/1975.

Norwich, Norfolk: St. Lawrence's Well (TG228089), near that church, probably served Fullers Hole, where cloth was cleansed and thickened. It is in Westwick Street, near Charing Cross, and in 1576 was granted to Robert Gibson "on condition that he should conduct its waters, through a leaden pipe, to the main thoroughfare. This he did, and a pump was erected over it". In the late 19th century the brewer Sir Harold Bullard converted it into a public drinking fountain and incorporated it into the outer wall of his brewery.

Source: E. R. Suffling: 'The Land of the Broads' (Benjamin Perry, 1895), p.85.

Oulton, Norfolk: Here, on land near Spa Lane north of the village, was another chalybeate spring with alleged healing properties.

Thetford, Norfolk: The residents of Thetford already knew that an unusual spring existed in the meadows between the rivers Little Ouse and Thet, but it wasn't until the 1740's that Matthew Manning wrote about the merits of its chalybeate waters. Although it became popular for a while for its healing effects on headaches and stomach problems, it soon became neglected. In 1818 a pump room was built over it, then a bath house in about 1833. But still it never gained enough patrons, and the was filled in by 1838. Thetford Spring House is now a private residence, and stands at about TL871827.

Wereham, Norfolk: "...to the west of the church is St. Margaret's Well, at which, in the times of popery, the people diverted themselves on that saint's day with cakes and ale, music and dancing; alms and offerings were brought, and vows made: all this was called Well worship."

Source: John Chambers: 'A General History of the County of Norfolk' (Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green, 1829), p.125.

Wymondham, Norfolk: St. Thomas a Becket's Well (TG106015 area) is near the churchyard, 'a copious spring, once an object of pilgrimage'. The well, now sealed, is in private grounds across a road near the abbey, with the spring that once fed it still flowing into a stream nearby.