St Kenelm’s Well and Church, Romsley

This holy site is served by two major pilgrimage routes, the St Kenelm Trail and the St Kenelm Way, both around 60 miles long and connecting to Winchcombe‍

Highlights

• ‍‍Holy well associated with St Kenelm

The story behind this holy well is so obscure it is hard to know what exactly happened to make it holy. Even its landscape setting is a surprise. The great West Midlands conurbation is less than a mile away, yet St Kenelm’s Church sits in peaceful rolling countryside on the edge of the Clent Hills. The well is a few steps downhill, set in a tranquil little garden.

Pilgrims have been coming here since at least the 11th century, visiting the holy well and church dedicated to St Kenelm, a prince from the kingdom of Mercia who died here early in the 9th century. The current church is a sandstone building dating from the 12th century.

Beneath its chancel is said to be a crypt where the original wellspring was visited by pilgrims in medieval times. This arrangement is more usually seen in Celtic wellhouses and chapels, particularly in Cornwall, which suggests a very early date for Romsley’s arrangement. The crypt was closed after the Reformation and the spring diverted downhill, where it can be found today.

A series of stone channels leads down from the church to the current well, which was overgrown when I visited. Apart from a small pool in the little stone chamber, there was no other sign of an actively flowing spring, and the channels were dry. A larger stone surround has a plaque identifying this as the general location of St Kenelm’s Well.

The church was locked when I visited but is said to have a window depicting the saint. A modern wooden statue has been installed beneath the roof of the main churchyard gate, the one directly south of the church.

The young prince St Kenelm died here no later than 821, perhaps in a battle against the Welsh, perhaps during a hunting trip, and perhaps murdered by his scheming sister, depending on which legend you prefer. The sister one is particularly unlikely since she was the abbess of Minster-in-Thanet, Kent.

To confuse matters further, St Kenelm later came to be venerated as a martyr, which means he was killed on account of his faith. We simply don’t know enough about him.

His earliest hagiography made up for the lack of facts with some imaginative miracle tales about the discovery of his body at Romsley. A white dove appeared in Rome and dropped a letter, written in Anglo-Saxon, on top of the high altar in St Peter’s Cathedral. It described the whereabouts of the saint’s body. The holy spring appeared when his corpse was discovered and moved.

There is however hard evidence that his body was subsequently taken to Winchcombe in Gloucestershire, 60 miles to the south, for burial by his father King Kenulf.

Directions‍

St Kenelm’s Church, Chapel Lane, Romsley B62 0NG‍

Halas Team Ministry‍

W3W: lift.debate.bats

GPS: 52.4249N 2.0827W‍

St Kenelm’s Church is 1 mile northwest of Romsley village, by the side of Chapel Lane. It was locked when I visited, but the holy well can be seen at any time by following a short path through the gate at the east end of the churchyard and taking the wooden steps to the bottom. The well is by the path.