St Aldhelm’s Church and Well, Doulting

The resting place of a saint’s body in medieval times created a holy place that became a pilgrim site, now visited by the Glastonbury Water Way and St Aldhelm’s Way

Highlights

• Holy well linked to St Aldhelm

I thought I should take a towel with me to this ‘dipping well,’ but encountered only a shallow stream that would barely wet the soles of a pilgrim’s feet. Other guides enthusiastically describe it as one of the west country’s best bathing wells, for reasons that escape me: I am pretty certain it has never been used as such.

The well is hidden away down a cul-de-sac, trickling out of the hill beneath the parish church. It emerges from two tiny stone arches built into the hillside, with a larger stone arch above. The water flows along a shallow channel for a few meters before disappearing into a 19th-century pumping house, once used to supply the village with water. It finally emerges in a stone trough by the side of the road. It is a peaceful and secluded place, overgrown when I visited.

St Aldhelm, bishop of Sherborne, founded the village church sometime around 700. St Aldhelm was known to immerse himself in water to say his prayers, as many early saints did. Local historians have therefore concluded that the village spring was used by the saint for his bathing rituals whenever he was in town. The claim is not supported by any direct evidence: the first reference to his holy well comes from the Victorian era.

A visitor in 1996 describes a bathing pool, but it is hard to work out what this refers to. The trough is clearly unsuitable, known locally as the Horse Trough according to The Water of Life. The shallow stream bed is slightly wider directly in front of the well source, so it is just about possible the bathing chamber sat between the source and its roadside trough.

If this were a medieval healing well, therefore, visitors would have sat beside the channel and used the water for washing and splashing over afflicted limbs, rather than any sort of immersion. There are similar configurations, such as St Constantine’s Well in Cornwall.

The large stone walls around the channel might indicate that a wellhouse once covered the stream, but no archaeological investigation has yet taken place. English Heritage describes the stonework as late 19th century.

St Aldhelm died in the village in 709, and his body was carried in ceremony to Malmesbury for burial. The route of his coffin was marked by stone crosses wherever the cortege rested for the night. The church is on the St Aldhelm’s Way pilgrim route to Malmesbury.

The current church building dates from the 12th century onwards. Nothing survives from St Aldhelm’s time, though the church’s collection of gargoyles is a notable feature. One effigy, on the corner of the south transept, facing the porch, shows a demon devouring an unbaptised baby, presumably a way of scaring people into going to church. Love, rather than fear, is another way to do it.

Directions‍

St Aldhelm’s Church, Church Lane, BA4 4QE

W3W: novels.coats.thud

GPS: 51.1864N 2.5077W (church)

W3W: gone.moral.parked

GPS: 51.1870N 2.5092W (well)‍

The church is on the southwest side of the village, locked when I visited though often kept open for visitors. To find the well, leave the churchyard through the main gate and keep walking away from the church down a narrow lane that becomes a footpath. It emerges through a gate onto another road, called School Lane, after 70m. Turn left, downhill, and the well is visible on your left after 100m.