Leechwell
Encyclopedia
Spring (hydrosphere)
A spring—also known as a rising or resurgence—is a component of the hydrosphere. Specifically, it is any natural situation where water flows to the surface of the earth from underground...
s in Totnes
Totnes
Totnes is a market town and civil parish at the head of the estuary of the River Dart in Devon, England within the South Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty...
, Devon
Devon
Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It was known in historical times for its supposed healing properties; this tradition continues among the town's large New Age
New Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
community. The name is also applied to Leechwell Lane, which leads to the spring from three directions.
Early history
Towards the end of the twelfth century, a leper hospital was established on the outskirts of Totnes. It is a popular belief in the town that lepers would walk up the high-walled Leechwell Lane to St Mary's church. However this belief cannot be traced back beyond the nineteenth century, and seems unlikely as lepers were ostracised, and the hospital was Church-run and would have had its own services. One branch of the lane leads to Maudlin (derived from Magdalen) Road, the site of the hospital, which is no longer extant after closing in about 1660.Springs used for healing
The springs were used by the townspeople for healing purposes, most probably for skin and eye conditions, and the troughs into which the outlets poured gained the names Toad, Long Crippler and Snake (long crippler being a local word for the slow worm). Their use became so popular that the Leechwell was included in a list of sites to be minded by two town wardens in 1444.Modern times
In 2003 it was discovered that an overgrown and forgotten pool behind one of the walls was in fact a rare triangular immersion pool fed by the Leechwell's waters. This meant that the Leechwell complex was a trinity of trinities — the triple spring, the three-pronged path and triangular pool emphasising the importance of the number three in both ChristianityChristianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
and superstition
Superstition
Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events....
.
The triangular immersion pool, which like the Leechwell is listed, will actually become a key feature of the Leechwell Garden, a new public open space. Work on the garden will start when the current building work is completed and the set of portacabins is removed. The design and implementation of the garden will be a joint collaboration between South Hams District Council and the Leechwell Garden Association.
The Leechwell today
Although the Leechwell and its walls still stand, they have no formal protection, and the walls have twice been damaged in the name of improvement - by road building in the 1960s and again during work on a car park in 2006, which reduced that part of the wall by several feet. However, the site has many vocal defenders, especially the group Design Our Space, which did much to prevent inappropriate development of that area in the mid 2000s.The Leechwell is used as a place of worship by the local New Age community, who often decorate it with ribbons and trinkets, but without causing damage to the stonework.
In recent years it appears that the right hand spring has moved its outlet point so that it no longer pours into the trough built for it. This might be due to the new houses built on the slopes above the area.