Wells of Wales

You can barely turn a corner in the Principality without stumbling across, or even into, a holy well, but they can't all be brilliant examples. We will deal very briefly with St John's Well, Tenby, which survives as a plaque in a wall below the garden of a terraced house; Kithen Well near Parkmill, an active but featureless spring in the undergrowth by a footpath; and the Holy Well of Reynoldston, linked to an old waterworks on the west Gower moors, and in need of a bit of care.

But others seen this last week were far more evocative and rewarding. I wasn't even expecting St Teilo's Well at Llandeilo, set in the wall below the church: it leapt out at me, as it were, in so far as a stationary sacred site can, clearly well-looked after and treated in the manner it deserves.

Down a stony, wooded footpath leading to Caswell Bay from the hamlet of Oldway in Bishopston are the ruins of St Peter's Chapel, and St Peter's Well is nearby. Someone cares for it: there are jugs for collecting the water and even, though you can't see them very easily here, goblets for (I imagine) drinking it - not that I would want to risk its murk.

Finally there was Gumfreston, just west of Tenby. No trouble finding this site, though the steep road down to the church tests the mettle of your car if that's how you're getting there. In his beautiful photographic book Living Wells of Wales Phil Cope shows his parents taking part in the Ceremony of the Nails here on Easter Day, when - in lieu of a service in the officially-neglected church building - locals gathered to cast three iron nails into the water of the tripartite Holy Wells, in honour of Christ's Passion and Resurrection. The couple who organised that, and looked after the church, are gone, and the building now bears a sign telling visitors 'This church is closed pending a decision on its future by the Church In Wales'; now, what can that possibly be? Can nobody nearby really be found to open and close it every now and again? Well. Until then, the Holy Wells are more active than the church, flowing and flowing while it succumbs to ivy.

St Illtyd's, Oxwich, just down from where I was staying, in contrast, has regular services, and - according to a folkloric account clearly copied to and fro across the Web - a long-dry well 'in the upper churchyard' into which a ghostly white horse was supposed to have disappeared. I knew nothing about it until I saw a list of things posted in the church porch for children to look out for. I couldn't spot it, so perhaps it only appears for children, but I'd hesitate to send them searching through the steep and brambled churchyard, perched above the water of the bay.