Holy Well, Malvern - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Holy Well is set on the slopes of the Malvern Hills

Malvern Hills

The Malvern Hills are a range of hills in the English counties of Worcestershire, Herefordshire and a small area of northern Gloucestershire, dominating the surrounding countryside and the towns and villages of the district of Malvern...

above Malvern Wells

Malvern Wells

Malvern Wells is a village and civil parish in the Malvern Hills District of Worcestershire, England. The parish of Malvern Wells, once known as South Malvern, was formed in 1894 from parts of the civil parishes of Hanley Castle, Welland, and the former parish of Great Malvern, and owes its...

. The well is believed to be the oldest bottling plant in the word.

History

The Holy Well was granted to John Hornyold Esq in 1558.

In 1743 Dr John Wall

John Wall (physician)

John Wall , was an English physician, one of the founders of the Worcester Royal Infirmary and the Royal Worcester porcelain works. He was also involved in the development of Malvern as a spa town.-Early life:...

analysed the spring water. He published his analysis of the water, stating that the water contained "nothing at all".

Edward Popham of Tewkesbury

Tewkesbury

Tewkesbury is a town in Gloucestershire, England. It stands at the confluence of the River Severn and the River Avon, and also minor tributaries the Swilgate and Carrant Brook...

erected the first bath house

Public bathing

Public baths originated from a communal need for cleanliness. The term public may confuse some people, as some types of public baths are restricted depending on membership, gender, religious affiliation, or other reasons. As societies have changed, public baths have been replaced as private bathing...

at the Holy Well in 1747.

In 1843 it was purchased by T G Hornyold, who erected the cottage orne-style building that houses the Well at a cost of £400.

The building was listed as Grade II and of Architectural Interest in the 1970's.

Bottling at the Holy Well

Malvern water has been bottled and distributed in the UK and abroad from as early as the reign of James I

James I of England

James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...

, with water bottling at the Holy Well being recorded in 1622. Various local grocers have bottled and distributed Malvern water during the 19th and early 20th centuries, but it was first bottled on a large commercial scale by Schweppes, who opened a bottling plant at Holy Well in Malvern Wells

Malvern Wells

in 1850. As official caterers to the Great Exhibition of 1851, Schweppes introduced the water as Malvern Soda, later renaming it Malvern Seltzer Water in 1856. In 1890 Schweppes moved away from Holy Well, entered into a contract with a Colwall

Colwall

Colwall is a village and civil parish in Herefordshire, England on the border with Worcestershire, nestling into the side of the Malvern Hills. Areas of the village are known as Colwall Stone, Upper Colwall and Colwall Green along over a mile of the B4218 road...

family, and built a bottling plant in the village in 1892. The Holy Well was subsequently leased to John and Henry Cuff, who bottled there until the 1960s. The Holy Well became derelict until 2009 when with the aid of a Lottery Heritage grant, production of 1200 bottles per day of Holy Well Spring Water was recommenced by an independent family-owned company.

Folklore

In the past Holy Well was dressed

Well dressing

Well dressing is a summer custom practised in rural England in which wells, springs or other water sources are decorated with designs created from flower petals...

on St. Oswald

Oswald of Worcester

Oswald of Worcester was Archbishop of York from 972 to his death in 992. He was of Danish ancestry, but brought up by his uncle, Oda, who sent him to France to the abbey of Fleury to become a monk. After a number of years at Fleury, Oswald returned to England at the request of his uncle, who died...

's day by people who had been cured at the well. St Oswald supposedly revealed the healing properties of the well to a hermit

Hermit

A hermit is a person who lives, to some degree, in seclusion from society.In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Christian who lives the eremitic life out of a religious conviction, namely the Desert Theology of the Old Testament .In the...

who lived on the hills.

Until 2006, religious items, flowers and other objects were left as votive offerings at the Holy Well. Local Christians and foreign visitors of a wide range of faiths used to leave prayers and wishes in thanks for the pure water. In 2006 concerns were raised in the local press about religious messages that had been written on the walls of the building. As a result, tokens are regularly removed with the exception of the official well dressing of the site in May.

In Early British Trackways Alfred Watkins

Alfred Watkins

Alfred Watkins was a businessman, self-taught amateur archaeologist and antiquarian who, while standing on a hillside in Herefordshire, England, in 1921 experienced a revelation and noticed on the British landscape the apparent arrangement of straight lines positioned along ancient features, and...

stated that he believed a ley line

Ley line

Ley lines are alleged alignments of a number of places of geographical and historical interest, such as ancient monuments and megaliths, natural ridge-tops and water-fords...

passed along the Malvern Hills through several wells including Holy Well, St Ann's Well

St. Ann's Well, Malvern

St. Ann's Well is set on the slopes of the Malvern Hills above Great Malvern. It is a popular site on a path leading up to the Worcestershire Beacon and lies on the final descent of the Worcestershire Way....

, Walms Well and St. Pewtress Well.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

History

Bottling at the Holy Well

Folklore

Further reading

External links