In Search of St Peter’s Well (Ffynnon Bedr), Ruthin

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Janet Bord (janet.bord@boyns.net)

As part of a long-term project to research in depth all the saints’ wells in Wales (around 800), I have recently had a look at what is known about St Peter’s Well in Ruthin, only a short walk from where I live.  The following account presents all the information I have discovered so far, and I would of course be interested to hear from anyone who can throw any further light on this fascinating but largely forgotten aspect of Ruthin’s past.

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Probable location

St Peter’s Well has long since disappeared and no trace remains.  It was probably in a field to the east of Castle Park Farm (field reference SJ126574), east of the Corwen road south of Ruthin Castle, and south of a lane (Lon Speiriol Isaf) linking that road with the A525 to the east.   Determining the exact location of the well has proved problematic, as will be explained.

The history of the well

The earliest reference to the well dates from around 1700, in this intriguing description from Lhwyd’s Parochialia:

Fynnon Bedr, Lately so-called, nicknamed fr: one Peter Jones who found it.  This is frequented in June & July.

Ruthin church is dedicated to St Peter, and the joint feast day of Saints Peter and Paul is on 29 June, so the reference to visiting the well in June and July would suggest that people were celebrating this feast day in the late 17th century, and that the well really was named for St Peter and not Peter Jones.  Perhaps a local person of this name was involved in improving or maintaining the well when it was adapted for use as a simple spa at the end of the 17th century?  Judging by its content, this brief description appears to date from the time when the well was still being visited at a time special to the saint, though perhaps without any understanding of why people congregated there at that time, its value solely as a place of healing having started to take priority.  Alternatively, perhaps the person who wrote the Ruthin entry for the Parochialia, possibly the town’s priest, knew very well that the well was named for St Peter but did not wish to associate the church with popery.  Congregating at holy wells in order to venerate the saint was a survival of popish practice, and was generally allowed but not condoned, hence possibly the writer’s reason for giving his own explanation for the well’s name.  

The next description of the well dates from 1756, when it featured in Diederick Wessel Linden’s Treatise on the Three Medicinal Mineral Waters at Llandrindod, and when it was clearly notable as having been used for healing purposes.    

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     In this same County [Denbighshire], there is also another medicinal Spring, near Ruthyn;  which, I am credibly informed, was in great Repute some 25 or 30 Years ago[i.e. early 18th century];  and was prescribed in several Disorders, not without good Success, by Dr. Foulks, an eminent Physician, who resided about that Time at Ruthin.  This Spring is about a Quarter of a Mile South of the Town, and is known by the Name of St. Peter’s Well.

     The Well is in the high Road, surrounded by the Lands of Richard Middleton, Esq;  of Chirk-Castle, Member of Parliament.  It is walled in;  and there is a Bason erected, into which the Water springs forth.  But at present, as the Use of it is quite discontinued, the Bason is much out of Repair;  and other adventitious Water, devoid of all medical Contents, runs in and commixes with it:  So that I found it utterly impracticable to make any Experiments on it that were solid and conclusive.  [However Linden continues with details of an experiment he made using the well water.]

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Fifty years later, in 1805, an account of the well was included in a guidebook, but it reads as though the information was taken from Linden’s account:

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…and St. Peter’s Well, in the same county, about a quarter of a mile from Ruthin, is reckoned a very fine medicinal spring.  At the recommendation of Dr. Fowkes, (an eminent physician at that place) it was secured by a wall built round it, and a bason placed to receive the water:  these afterwards went to decay, and the spring was neglected.

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The entry for the well in Lewis’s Topographical Dictionary (first published 1833) also adds no further details:  

A chalybeate spring, dedicated to St. Peter, was formerly in high repute for the supposed miraculous medicinal efficacy of its waters, but is at present neglected:  it is strongly impregnated with some mineral, and, if due care were taken to prevent its admixture with other waters, it might still be found highly beneficial.

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However this description does for the first time speak of the water as ‘miraculous’, suggesting that it was by some people believed to have qualities that were not simply medicinal.  The reference to the water’s ‘admixture with other waters’ suggests that most of this description was derived from Linden.  It appeared in the entry for the parish of Llanrhudd, which adjoins Ruthin, and Revd Elias Owen, a local folklorist who made a study of a number of North Wales wells, also located the well in Llanrhudd.  This is because St Peter’s church in Ruthin was a daughter church of St Meugan’s in Llanrhudd, and Ruthin parish was cut out of Llanrhudd’s ecclesiastical parish.  The late 19th century Ordnance Survey map shows the secular parishes, with the well just inside Ruthin parish,  not far from both the western boundary with Llanfwrog and a little further from the eastern boundary with Llanrhudd.  The mid 19th century tithe schedule treats the two parishes together, as ‘Ruthin and Llanrhydd’.

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Descriptions of the well

Revd Elias Owen wrote two accounts of the well at the end of the 19th century, by which time it was long out of use.  Owen had been shown the former location of St Peter’s Well by a friend living in Ruthin:

ST. PETER’S WELL.  This Well stood in the Parish of Llanrhudd, in a field on the side of the road that goes to Corwen.  After you pass the Castle, you come to a road that leads from the Corwen road to Llanfair road, you will find the site of this Well in the field on your right hand as you proceed from the Corwen road along the lane that takes you to Llanfair road. 

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His other description of the well’s location is:

     It stood in a meadow, and was in a straight line drawn from the Castle [Park] Farm, and the Railway, and was about one hundred yards from the Line.  The meadow is on the right hand side of the first road, after leaving Ruthin for Corwen, that connects the Corwen & Llanfair highways.

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Sadly Owen’s drawn plan of the location has been lost.   His statement that it was 100 yards west of the railway line locates it on the edge of a field which slopes uphill from the valley meadows.  But it is unlikely to have been on the field boundary, since Owen states that the well ‘stood in a meadow’, which suggests it was further west in the large flat valley field, which was two fields in Owen’s day.  An aerial view of all the fields between the Corwen road and the railway line shows no sign that there ever was a well there.  Unfortunately Owen did not indicate how far into the field from the lane the well was situated, so it is difficult to accurately pinpoint the location.  Nor did he actually see the well, only ‘the spot, where the well stood’, but the friend who showed him the location, also described how the well had appeared:

It was about three yards square, the bottom paved, and the sides lined with stones;  steps descended into the well.  [His other description says there were two steps.] There were several paths leading to the well, & my informant thought that at least one of them, that leading from Ruthin was paved.  The other paths were in the direction of Tyn-y-Wern [to the south], and Llanrhudd [to the east].  Since the meadow was badly drained, most likely, all the pathways had stones imbedded in them, as otherwise the well could not, in rainy weather, be reached.  It may be stated that sixty years ago [c. 1840] the excellent roads in those parts did not exist.

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The paved paths described by Owen sound feasible, since the existing B-road heading south from Ruthin did not exist in 1840, as noted by Owen.  But maps and aerial photographs show no sign of any paved paths leading to a spot in the fields west of the railway.  However a late 18th century estate map does show what appears to be a track heading south from Lon Speiriol Isaf into the meadow, before making a short turn east and abruptly ending.   An early 19th century plan of the area also shows this track, with what appears to be a building at its southern end.   There is no record, or memory, of the purpose of the track or building, and it is just possible that St Peter’s Well was at the end of the track.  As noted in Owen’s description, the meadow was badly drained at that time, and it seems likely that a paved access would have been created to serve a popular well.  However this location is rather more than 100 yards west of the railway line – but maybe Revd Owen simply made an inaccurate guess as to the distance from railway to well site.

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Evidence in the field names

As has been shown, all the published references to the well have been relatively vague, and later ones have simply used information from earlier sources, most often Linden, without providing any contemporary information of value, apart from the fact that the well was no longer in use.  In 1895 the Denbighshire Free Press published an article on the ‘Collegiate and Parochial Church of St. Peter’s, Ruthin’, extracted from a church publication, S David’s Weekly, which contains a reference to St Peter’s Well, after discussion of the presence of White Friars in Ruthin.

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     The name of the large field, Cae Gwynach, on the Corwen road, where the volunteers recently encamped, is said to stand for Cae Gwyn Fynach (i.e. ‘The White Friar’s Field);  and in the south end of it once existed the Holy Well, Ffynnon Bedr, a chalybeate spring – of course miraculous.

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I will discuss field names shortly, but the most important fact revealed in this description is that the well was, at the end of the 19th century, said to be at the southern end of a named field, this field’s location being verifiable from the tithe map and schedule.  According to the tithe map dating from earlier in the 19th century (November 1856), if properly interpreted (the handwriting is poor) the field names to the south of Ruthin include Cae gwnach, Cae gwnach bach, and Gwinnydd.  One field name has been transcribed (in the Cynefin project) as ‘Gwinnydd Mr Peters’.  The appearance of the name ‘Mr Peters’ is interesting, in view of the reference in the Parochialia to Peter Jones, and also of course the well’s dedication to St Peter.   However on examining the tithe entry for myself on the Cynefin website, I came up with an alternative reading.  The handwriting on this tithe schedule is appalling as well as being very faint, but it appears to me that what has been interpreted as ‘Mr Peters’ actually reads ‘St Peter’.  

The quotation above turns Cae Gwnach into Cae Gwynach and then interprets this as having been short for Cae Gwyn Fynach, translating this as White Friar’s Field.  However, mynach/fynach means ‘monk’;  ‘friar’ is brodyr;  and anyway the adjective should follow the noun, i.e. Mynach gwyn.  So there are two obvious problems with the supposed field name Cae Gwyn Fynach, if indeed it ever did take this form.   It is certainly a moot point whether its name had anything to do with Ruthin’s early ecclesiastical history.    There was briefly a priory of Augustinian Bonhommes (White Friars) in Ruthin in the 15th century, but their short stay makes it unlikely that they would have been remembered in a field name.   ‘Cae Gwynach’ must be the same as the tithe map’s Cae Gwnach, and ‘Gwnach’ may indeed mean ‘white’:   According to Sir John Morris Jones, ‘In the spoken lang. [language] and frequently in MSS, we have gwnnach for gwynnach “whiter”’.   Gwinnydd may possibly be a variant of gwynnach;  in addition gwinydd means ‘vintner’,  gweinydd means ‘minister’;  and gwenith means ‘wheat’.  Some of these options have religious connotations:  gwyn/gwen means ‘white’, but can also mean ‘holy’, and ffynnon wen is a general term signifying a holy well.  Gweinydd can also mean ‘attendant’ or ‘minister’ in the religious sense;  although as gwinnydd is here used in an agricultural setting it seems more likely to mean ‘wheat’, as in this old Welsh riddle:  ‘Beth sydd y ffynnon wen lefrith sydd yn y cae gwenith?   Buwch flith.’  (What is a white well of fresh milk/In the middle of a wheatfield?  A cow.) (Although to let a cow into a wheatfield would not appear to be a very good idea!)   However, as noted earlier the handwriting in the tithe schedule is virtually illegible, and I think it most likely that the word is not gwinnydd but gwernydd, meaning ‘meadows’.   This would mean that the field name Gwinnydd Mr Peters (according to the transcription of the tithe schedule on Cynefin) was in reality Gwernydd St Peter, which of course translates as St Peter’s Meadows.