Unexpected Wells

The Border country furnished the usual sort of damp-holes-in-the-ground trying to convince the visitor that they are significant springs of some sort, including the Monk's Well at Upsettlington - one of a triad of named springs, along with St Mary's Well and the better-known Nun's Well, all in adjoining fields in the Berwickshire parish of Ladykirk. The Monk's Well did have a surprise for me, though: the stink of bad eggs revealing the presence of sulphur in the water, a feature not mentioned by any written account of the well, not that there are many.

St Helen's Well along the River Till is supposed to be a medicinal spring, although it's not clear that this is because of any mineral property of the water. It's marked on the OS map and mentioned in Revd Wallis's 1769 The Natural History & Antiquities of Northumberland (it is only just in Northumberland by about a mile or so). Now it's mainly a tumble of stones over which the water runs quite plentifully. 

The Mermaid's Well near Lauder is also marked on the map, but if I hadn't seen a picture of it beforehand I wouldn't have made a detour to see what might have been very underwhelming. It's dry and ruinous, certainly, and you wonder how long it will be before it falls apart completely, but it was once quite grand. It appears to be 19th or perhaps even 18th-century, but I have no idea of its history. It's by a stream in a field, opposite a small house and why it exists at all is a mystery.

But the best well of all I saw (and frankly one of the best I've ever seen) is no mystery, nor really a holy well despite its location next to the St Cuthbert's Way footpath at Benrig near St Boswells. This is the Crystal Well, constructed in the late 1800s when the owners of Benrig House decided to divert the overflow of the spring that supplied the house with water into a grotto complete with a red stone basin and a bearded river-god's head over the entrance. Folly though it may be, it definitely looks the part, and even manages a degree of drama.