St Cleer's Well, St Cleer, Cornwall

A roadside location makes this an easy place to visit as a pilgrim, but too public to use as a ritual bathing well, despite the good condition of the wellhouse

Highlights

• Roadside wellhouse, stone cross

St Cleer might be the same saint as St Clether, whose elaborate well chapel is 10 miles to the north, but we do not know for sure. If they are the same person, the contrast between his two wells could not be greater. Access to the water at St Cleer’s is completely impossible, thanks to a modern metal grille chained to a heavy stone slab inside the well chamber. A family of tiny frogs hopped about in the water below when I visited. The wellhouse itself is in excellent condition, with a grand structure of granite arches with a carved medieval cross alongside. It is clearly designed as an immersion pool, for rites of baptism and more probably healing. It is impossible to dip even a finger into this holy source now since there is no outlet anywhere around the structure.

A niche at the front of the wellhouse contains a small stone statue of the saint. The wellhouse was built in the 15th century and restored in 1864 when the statue was presumably installed. Local children have participated in a well-dressing ceremony here in recent years. Even if St Cleer’s well chamber were accessible, it is very public beside a busy road. It was perhaps surrounded by open countryside when it was built since it stands at some remove from the parish church, which is 250m away in the centre of St Cleer village.

Directions

Well Lane, St Cleer, Liskeard PL14 5DT

W3W: valued.mend.trying

GPS: 50.4884N 4.4691W

The holy well is beside the road on the right as you head north-east out of the village along Well Lane towards Tremar and Pensilva.