St Madern's Well and St Maddern's Church, Madron, Cornwall

This mysterious holy well complex has seen a pilgrimage revival led by Methodists and Anglicans, a reminder of the power of sacred natural places to bring people together

Highlights

• Ruined well chapel
• Healing spring
• Ancient crosses
• Pagan monolith in St Maddern’s Church

Radioactive spring water trickles into a stone pool in the corner of Madron’s ruined chapel. Even if it glowed, this place could hardly be more mysterious.

The chapel is in a secluded strip of woodland, about a mile north-west of Madron village. The water arises in a spring a few hundred metres from the chapel, flows into a small holy pool beside the footpath, and finally trickles into the chapel’s well chamber further downstream.

St Madern’s Well has miracle cures to its name, but the chapel is currently impossible to use as originally intended – not least because we have no idea what people did here. I can’t think of any other place in Britain where there is both an altar and an immersion chamber in the same room.

A trickle of water still flows into the well. It has double the level of background radiation – not enough to cause health problems were one able to bathe in it. I risked a sip out of curiosity, and then crossed myself with the water.

The bottom of the chamber is currently too shallow and full of boulders and plants to permit any immersion-style bathing. I doubt many would be tempted even if it were restored, though I’d give it a go for tradition’s sake.

Stone benches line the side walls, a compelling place to sit and linger despite the chapel’s ruined condition. Nearly everything about the chapel is a mystery. The dimensions of the single-room structure are 2:1, said to reflect Celtic origins, although the visible ruins date from the Norman era or later.

The biggest puzzle is the chapel layout. It is strange to find an altar and an immersion chamber in the same room. Indeed baptisteries are generally separate buildings, even in Celtic sites where natural water was freely used in rituals. The concept of a ‘baptistery church’ is almost a contradiction in terms although some use it to describe Madron.

The well is partly screened by a very short stone wall on either side. I could only think of a shower cubicle when I tried to imagine this chamber being used. It is not an entirely inappropriate comparison, since anyone using the water would have been naked whether for healing or baptismal rituals. As at Dupath Well House (page 179), I can’t imagine anyone stripping off directly in front of an altar, hence perhaps the screening walls. You could enter and remove a robe before bathing but some sort of curtain might have served here too.

The Water of Life speculates that the unusual water feature was used in a way similar to the Orthodox church’s immersion rituals. The liturgy is still used today to celebrate the baptism of Christ in the Jordan, on or around Epiphany in January. It seems unlikely that a chapel would be built for this solitary festival, but the idea of a liturgy incorporating water is obviously correct.

My view is that Madron is an immersion healing well with a ritual common to other places in Britain (for example St Fillan’s holy pool, page 589, and St Tecla’s Well, page 467). In these places, the supplicant bathed in the holy water and then slept on the altar of a nearby church. The only unique thing about Madron would therefore be the proximity of well and altar, brought conveniently together as a sort of faith-powered hospital.

The altar seems a logical choice for a bed, and it still lies at the east end of the chapel. You can trace your finger over a square hole cut in the middle that might once have held a small reliquary.

A miraculous cure is recorded as late as 1640 and testified by Bishop Hall of Exeter. The patient was John Trelille, who had been crippled by a spinal injury at the age of 12. His cure demonstrates the ritual in action, and is best recounted in Holy Wells in Britain.

When he was 28, Trelille had a dream that told him to visit the well, so he asked his friends to carry him here. He “washed his whole body in the stream which penetrates the chapel” and then slept on “St Maddern’s bed.” After repeating this on three consecutive Thursdays, he was completely cured. So complete was his recovery he fought in the Civil War – but was killed four years later in Dorset.

The book also records that ill children were brought to the well on the first three Sundays of May. They were stripped naked and dipped in the water three times, then dressed and placed on ‘St Maddern’s Bed’. The bed is either the altar, or a grassy mound which once lay next to it. This could have been the grave of St Madron himself, but evidence is lacking and the mound itself has been flattened.

The chapel has been used for occasional services by both Anglicans and Methodists in recent years. If it seems incongruous that Methodists should frequent a holy well, it should be remembered that the church was founded as a popular, grass-roots movement with great sympathy for working people’s devotions and beliefs.

After puzzling over the chapel, it is light relief to contemplate the nearby healing pool. You actually pass it first as you walk along the footpath from the car park. The holy stream gathers in this small natural pool before flowing towards the chapel, which is 100m away. The pool is still used for popular rituals, with rags of cloth, or clouties, hung from the surrounding trees. As they rot, any ailment or problem associated with their owner will also fade away: sympathetic magic.

If you want to see the wellspring itself, you need to wade past the healing pool through deep mud to find a large pool lined with granite slabs. It is completely secluded, inaccessible without high boots and dry weather since there is no proper path through the trees. I visited during a deluge.

Pagan though all this may feel, there is an ancient Celtic cross in the vicinity. When you leave the car park, turn sharp right rather than driving straight ahead. The cross is in the verge on the right after 150m. It is a short stone carving, with an equal-sided cross in a round head, GPS coordinates 50.1378N 5.5769W.

St Maddern’s Church

The parish church in Madron offers a very different experience to the magic and mud of the holy wells. Although Madron lies a mile out of Penzance at the top of a steep hill, this was once the parish church for the whole town. This explains the size of the building and the extent of its surviving artworks and carvings.

Over the south door hangs the Nelson banner. News of the admiral’s victory at Trafalgar in 1805 reached Penzance first, and this banner was made for an impromptu procession through the town. In the south chapel, a series of medieval carved bench ends catches the eye, along with an alabaster carving of angels on the wall. A notice suggests this might have been part of a pre-Reformation shrine.

It is possible that the church contained a shrine of St Madron himself at one point. Unfortunately, we know next to nothing about this saint. The Oxford Dictionary of Saints lists four possible Celtic missionaries who might be identified with him. Whoever he was, he certainly left his mark on the landscape, with this large granite church in Madron village and the mystery well chapel a mile away.

An early Christian cross can be seen in the graveyard, beyond the western end of the church by the boundary wall. The graveyard’s circular structure confirms that this site, rather than the well chapel, was the main Christian settlement in the area.

At the back of the church, propped up against the nave wall, is a curious monolith, a pagan standing stone recycled into a Celtic gravestone. It is covered in a sprawling but incomprehensible Christian inscription. From unknown pagan to unknown Christian significance: it is the perfect symbol for Madron and its well.

Directions

St Madern’s Well, on the road to Boswarthen Farm, Madron, Penzance TR20 8PA

www.cornishancientsites.com (click ‘Ancient sites’ then ‘Top sites’)

W3W: album.ends.wounds

GPS: 50.1402N 5.5751W

St Maddern’s Church, Bellair Road, Madron, Penzance TR20 8SP

www.madrongulvalchurches.org.uk

W3W: humans.rubble.assume

GPS: 50.1317N 5.5648W

To reach the holy wells and chapel, drive west out of Madron along Fore Street. About 500m after passing the last houses, turn right at the first bend in the road, following the sign to ‘Boswarthen Celtic Chapel & Well’. The car park is 300m along this lane on the right. Follow the footpath into the woods and you will come to the first healing pool after 5 minutes, and the well chapel another minute or two along the same path. The postcode for Boswarthen Farm (TR20 8PA) will take a satnav device past the car park entrance. This car park has suffered theft from vehicles, so take valuables with you.

St Maddern’s Church is just south of Madron village centre, down Bellair Road or Church Road. It has restricted opening times which are on the website, ranging from Friday and Saturday in the winter to Tuesday to Saturday in the summer. However, you can borrow a key from the Rectory on Church Road at other times during the day if the rector is available.