St Mungo's Well (Copgrove) (northeast of Ripley and Killinghall)

submitted by rogerkread
Holy Well in Yorkshire (North)

The name shown on Ordnance Survey maps is St Mongah’s Well and there are other spellings in reference books, but in reality it is St. Mungo’s Well - St Mungo being Kentigern, patron saint of Glasgow. The well was of the ‘total immersion’ type and was thought to be especially useful to treat rickets. There is a brick lined chamber with a flight of steps leading downwards to a strongly flowing stream of water, presumably some distance from the actual spring. This must lie under the garden of Well House. The well is forlorn, fenced off and covered over, with various lengths of plastic piping in the stream suggesting it may be being used as a water supply for the house. See the interesting article here.

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Copgrove Well The Copgrove Well by P. D. Hartley

     In 1922, Basil Blackwell of Oxford published privately a book by the Revd. Henry Dewsbury Alves Major B.D. entitled Memorials of Copgrove. The Revd. Major was a scholarly man who, after his incumbency as the Rector of the small church of St Michael from 1911 until his retirement in 1919 dedicated 'The Memorials' rather charmingly as follows: 'Admiral Sir Francis Bridgeman GCB, GCVO, Vice-Admiral of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the Admiralty thereof and to Lady Bridgeman of Copgrove Hall, Lady of the Manors of Copgrove & Walkingham, and to the Parishioners of Copgrove, these memorials of their Parish with affection and respect I dedicate.' The book must have been produced at no small cost; everything about it is good, even to the careful choice of the typescript and the quality of the paper used in the printing.

     Small villages with an individual charm are often described as 'sleepy' and this description certainly applies to Copgrove. Lying in the rolling, morainic land between Knaresborough and the market town of Boroughbridge and on the western flanks of the Plain of York, it is dominated by The Hall, set on a low hill overlooking a large, reed-fringed lake, and by a thousand acres of wooded, game-filled land. The distant low roar of traffic on the modern Great North Road seems to add rather than to detract from the charm and solitude of the place.

     Little has happened in Copgrove since the legions marched away from nearby Isurium Brigantum, the important, fortified Romano-British town which lies some three miles to the north east. Today the village of Aldborough covers the site, for Isurium is many feet below, preserved in the silts of the River Ure. In 1309 Archbishop William de Greenfield of York passed by Copgrove, remarking derogatorily on the dilapidation at that time of the church; something was done, and parochial pride restored.

     But what of The Well - St Mungo's Well - what indeed of the Copgrove well? It can hardly have been by chance that in 1626 Dr Edmund Deane found it necessary, in his Spadacrene Anglia to blast off a broadside against this 'innefectual superstitious relique of Popery', for people were coming from far and wide to seek a cure for their ills in the miraculous waters of St Mungo's Well. Dr Deane may be said to have had a vested interest in curative waters issuing from the earth, for after all, such waters were known in the mountains of Bohemia, and in parts of France, and more importantly had recently been discovered at Starbeck on the outskirts of nearby Knaresborough and in adjoining Harrogate. Sulphur water, Chalybeate water, Magnesia water which stank abominably but under medical supervision (such as that of the good Doctor) purged the body of its humours, relieved aching joints, and cured or alleviated a variety of ills.

     But people being people, they still came to the clear waters of St Mungo's Well and immersed themselves, totally and uncomfortably, in the cold, pure, silently bubbling water in the stone cistern which even today stands on the lands which briefly, for such is the nature of life, belonged to the good Admiral. An entry in the Copgrove Parish Register gives a rather sad insight into the fact that St Mungo's holy water was more mystical than medical: 'A stranger Yt. came to Ye well was buried May 27 1710'.

     The question now arises as to how the well got its reputation for magical powers and how it came to be named after an obscure Celtic saint. There are five tenuous clues which, if they can be accepted point to a dark, indeed even a sinister history, going back far in time. The first three clues are geographical and all are within a radius or four miles from the well. They are the known site of Isurium Brigantum, the known presence of a 'roman road' which must have run close to the well and was probably on the site of an even earlier track, and three Standing Stones - Druid Stones, they have been called. The remaining clues consist of five coins found in the well precincts, and a carved stone of undeniable antiquity, now set in the north wall of Copgrove church.

     Four of the coins range over the reigns of William III to George III, but the fifth is a Bronze of the Emperor Hadrian. How did it get there, and why? In Roman times, the surrounding country was primeval forest of oak and ash. There remains the 'Devil's Stone' in the north wall of the church. Much eroded by time, it still clearly portrays the figure of a man. Hanging from his left hand is a roughly circular object and to his right is what has been described as a TAU cross; whatever the latter may have been designed to represent, it is certainly in the form of a letter T.

     Discussing Druidism, Prof. Lloyd Laing states tersely and somewhat dryly, 'skulls have a habit of being discovered without their skeletons in Romano-British wells'. And so a scenario is set. There is no surviving record of human remains ever having been recovered from St Mungo's Well, but a severed head and a sacrificial knife would describe the objects on the Devil's Stone far better than any alternative suggestions so far forthcoming.

     Then, when the Romans made their third and final push north of the Humber in the conquest of Britain, Isurium was already a populous, thriving Celtic Brigantian town and remained so throughout the occupation. Druidism would be established, and would certainly linger on.

     How did the Bronze find its way to the well? People both use and lose coins; they drop out of pockets, pouches and purses; sometimes they are thrown, confidently or privily as offerings to ambition, of propitiation or simply, hope. Was it an offering made secretly and perchance fearfully in the gloom of the forest, or was it simply - lost?

     Finally, to the matter of St Mungo and a dedication made to him in the Dark ages, far from his native land in the ancient, Celtic kingdom of Strathclyde. Bishop Kentigern (for 'Mungho' is a pseudonym meaning 'dearest one') was a reforming cleric in the days when much of Britain was pagan and even in the christianised parts, many held firmly to the Old Beliefs. Was there a dark power invested in the waters of the well which was so great that the Holy Man deemed it necessary to exorcise it himself? Certainly he was associated in some way with the ancient Minster of Ripon some eight miles away, where his pastoral staff, given him by St Columba, was revered as a relic in early mediaeval times. Did he really tread the ancient road now lost, through the forest, to the Druid's Well?

     On such things we may speculate, but the truth we may never know.

http://people.bath.ac.uk/liskmj/living-spring/sourcearchive/fs4/fs4pdh1.htm

Site Name: Devil's Stone (Copgrove) Alternative Name: Copgrove figure
Country: England County: Yorkshire (North) Type: Sculptured Stone
Nearest Town: Ripon  Nearest Village: Copgrove
Map Ref: SE346632
Latitude: 54.063588N  Longitude: 1.472855W
Condition: 3 Ambience: 4 Access: 5 Accuracy: 4 

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Devil's Stone (Copgrove) submitted by rogerkread
This carving is now on the south wall of the nave inside St. Michael’s church at Copgrove. Until recently it was outside, on the east wall of the chancel at the corner with the north wall; before “restoration” of the church by the Victorians it was reputedly on the inside north chancel wall.

It is badly worn and so the features are difficult to discern, but it is clearly pre-Christian, usually attributed to the Iron Age or else a Romano-British copy of an Iron Age symbol. Exactly what is represented is a subject of debate. The Collins Guide to Archaeology suggests either a ‘god with hammer and dish of abundance’ or else a priest with sacrificial vessel. Clearly a sexy female priest! More likely a Sheela-na-gig? See the interesting discussion here.

St Mungo's Well and 'Devil's Stone', Copgrove by Ian Taylor

     I read with interest the article by P.D. Hartley on the Copgrove holy well (Source (First Series) issue 4) and decided, with my wife, and Edna Whelan, to visit the area and see both the well and the 'Devil's Stone'. The Holy Well (described as St Monagh's Well on the l:25 000 Ordnance Survey map - SE 3470 6378) is upon a public footpath which runs from Copgrove village (but is unsignposted) through the fields belonging to Copgrove Hall. The Well is, in fact, a very large chamber or cistern which has been let into the course of an underground stream. It is covered today by a padlocked wooden top, so a full inspection was not possible, but water could be heard flowing strongly through what sounded from the echo like a fairly empty receptacle. The chamber would, therefore, be useable again as a sacred healing bathing place if some future owner of the site wished to make it available. The site is enclosed by a wooden fence. The Well House, named on the O.S. map in the vicinity of the Holy Well, has presumably been destroyed as there is no trace of this structure left.

     The Devil's Stone is located on the north-east corner of the church of St Michael, Copgrove, about 500 yards south of the Well. The stone, with its interesting carving, used to be inside the church either against or within the north wall of the chancel but, during nineteenth century restoration, it was placed in its present external position where weathering will eventually erode it completely. The figure on the stone has been identified as, and certainly has all the features of, a Sheela-na-gig; the Celtic Goddess of Creation and Destruction. We took a very careful rubbing of the Copgrove carving which shows the figure holding her vagina open with her left hand, while in her right is an object which, as P.D. Hartley suggests, looks suspiciously like a head. What may be a ritual beheading axe appears to one side of the figure - though the official interpretation of this is a Tau Cross. In this Copgrove variant of the Sheela-na-gig, the Celtic beheading cult may be represented, symbolising more than simply the return of all life to the Otherworld womb of the Universal Mother; one aspect of the figure could be that the head is about to be thrust back inside the vagina, from which its life had originally emerged.

     There may be an interesting relationship here with the Celtic custom of associating carved stone heads with holy wells - for instance at St Helen's Well, Eshton (see Source (First Series) issue 5) where the carved heads are under the water, or at the Well of the Heads at Invergarry, and elsewhere, where heads are part of the Well House architecture. This custom, possibly hinted at by the Copgrove carving, may depict the rite of the creation of a Guardian; the ritual beheading and the subsequent capturing of the spirit of the victim within the human energy field of the carved stone head, which is then placed at or within the well. This Guardian entity is thus held 'between the worlds' at the Otherworld 'gateway' of the sacred waters of the Goddess - the Holy Well. The placing of real human heads within the pillars or door posts of Gallic temples in southern France has been noted, and this custom may have been more widespread than archaeological evidence (quite inadequate in this context) would seem to imply.

     Alternatively, it may be that the object in the right hand of the figure is not a head but a cauldron. This possibility is echoed in the name of Copgrove itself; cupa = cup (Gaelic) - a chalice or Grail and symbol of regeneration, like the womb of the Great Mother, portrayed in the figure of the Sheela-na-gig. The cauldron also connects with the Copgrove Holy Well, which has evidently always been a large bath type of receptacle, presumably for total immersion of the body. This is, maintaining the Celtic link, a graphic representation of the cauldron of Ceridwen, perhaps itself originally a holy well of inspiration and regeneration - the water being the channel, or medium through which these Otherworld powers were expressed in physical creation. Dr Ellison, quoted by Reverend Major in Memorials of Copgrovestates that the sick had to be dipped five, seven or nine times in the holy well in June or July and that 'the officious women at the Well are active in rubbing their backs or their maimed parts'. The doctor's observation was made in 1700, so we have here a graphic example of the survival of ancient, Pagan, customs in post-Parliamentarian (but pre-Enclosure) England.

     The Celtic association with Sheela-na-gig figures obviously dates, at Copgrove, from the pre-Saxon period, and the Devil's Stone has been identified as Romano-British. A few place-names in the area retain Celtic influence, for example Branton Court, one mile south of Copgrove, and Copt Hewick near Ripon. And, of course, Aldborough - Isurium Brigantum - is only three miles away to the north-east.

Site Name: Brimham Rocks 
Country: England County: Yorkshire (North) Type: Rock Outcrop

Brimham Rocks submitted by andy_h
Rock Outcrop in Yorkshire (North). These millstone grit rock formations have been caused by glaciation and weather related erosion over thousands of years. Some of them are enormous. There are cup-marks/rock art on a few of the stones

Site Name: Brimham Rocks Rock Art  Country: England 

Cup and Ring marks / Rock Art in Yorkshire (North)

Cup and ring marked rock.

Pastscape:

http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=52041

Site Name: Hartwith Moor 
Country: England County: Yorkshire (North) Type: Standing Stone (Menhir)
Nearest Town: Harrogate  Nearest Village: Summerbridge

Standing Stone in North Yorkshire

This un-named standing stone, Standing Stone Hill, North Yorks. The O.S. map for Nidderdale shows a 'Standing Stone Hill' just north of the village of Hartwith, near Summerbridge. Though any references to an actual stone are hard to come by. We followed the public footpath through Highfield farm and asked the farmer permission to wander his land looking for the stone. He was very amiable and gave us directions to it, telling us it was off the footpath in the middle of one of his pastures. On first sight, it reminded me of a miniature 'Devil's arrow', the huge stones further south-east. It possesses the same curious weathering, a 'fluting' at the top. The views west to the lofty Pennines are magnificent, the vast Vale of York lays to the east. 

Site Name: Fertility Stone (CR-638) 
Country: England County: Yorkshire (North) Type: Rock Art
Nearest Town: Dacre 

Fertility Stone (CR-638) submitted by brigantia
One of a cluster of cup-and-ring stones around the Bryan’s Wood and Eastwoods Farm area, this carving is well worth a visit, but can be covered in cow poo and muck as the animals pass right over the stone in the gap in the wall here on their daily amble.

If the daylight isn’t good (cloudy, raining), it can be difficult to see the carving. But in good sunshine in either morning or evening, the carving stands out. On the stone there can be seen are a number of cup-and-rings, plus a double-ring, fading their ways around the more defined cup-markings. The stone appears to have been found in the 1990s, but official records of it are scant. 

More about it at the Northern Antiquarian and Yorkshire Rock Art 

Note: Brigantia asks: Does anyone know the origin of the name of this stone and who first found it?

Site Name: Dacre Top 
Country: England County: Yorkshire (North) Type: Ancient Village or Settlement
Nearest Town: Pateley Bridge  Nearest Village: Dacre

Dacre Top submitted by GillianHovell
Iron Age Settlement, Round Barrow and possible Long Barrow in Yorkshire (North). The remnant of a cairn or maybe a Neolithic long barrow (c4,000 -2,500BC) in a very exposed position on top of the ridge. It is not obvious at first sight but careful inspection reveals some obvious placed and shaped stones and of course the highly visible location is ideal for a ritual site. 

The exposed nature of the site means that any soil cover will have been lost and it is likely that stone has been removed for other purposes by a succession of settlements and industrial activity. No detailed investigation of the cairn has yet taken place.

The most complete prehistoric feature is less ancient, being a Bronze Age barrow. Its characteristic shape is not apparent from some viewpoints, especially from public roads and until recently it was generally considered to be a natural feature. We now know that this is not the case although a natural rock outcrop has been incorporated and the strength of that rock is one of the reasons why it remains in place today. The rock has been shaped by splitting off layers of stone on the north side, giving the impression of a series of shallow steps that were then covered with soil to produce the distinctive profile of the barrow. The outcrop was too small to provide the complete barrow mound so the profile of the south side has been created by soil covered by a layer of carefully placed stones that have protected the barrow against erosion by wind and rain. There are no other similar features nearby today but there are prominent hilltops nearby that may have been similarly used only to have their structures destroyed by weather or human hand.

Read more in Prehistoric Dacre (link to PDF on that page) by J Brophy, Gillian Hovell and the Iron Age Nidderdale team.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The location given is approximate, at present the sites are 'off limits' on private farmland, and can only be visited by invitation on accompanied visits, see below for details of the next one. 

Note: Gillian Hovell presents a weekly video blog on the Iron Age and Prehistoric Nidderdale project

Calverley

Site Name: St Wilfrid (Calverley) 
Country: England County: Yorkshire (West) Type: Sculptured Stone
Nearest Town: Horsforth  Nearest Village: Calverley
Map Ref: SE208372
Latitude: 53.830650N  Longitude: 1.685456W
Condition: 3 Ambience: 3 Access: 5 Accuracy: 4 

Internal Links: 
External Links: 

Sculptured Stone in Yorkshire (West)

St Wilfrid's church at Calverley to the west of Leeds. The church houses a collection of Medieval cross-slabs. But one slab in particular is Anglo-Saxon, possibly from the 7th-10th centuries CE. This has a cross and chalice carved upon it. It once marked the grave of a Saxon priest. The slabs stand against the chancel wall, and were brought inside the church in 1977 for safety and preservation.