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Sacred Well
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The holy well at St.Madron is one of Cornwall's oldest and most famous wells. St.Madern, of whom nothing is known may have been unique to this area, though apparently it has been a local surname. Madron church is an ancient church with a pre-christian standing stone now in the church, it was re-used in the 6th/7th C to mark a christian burial
St.Madern's well is a mile north of the church, it is set in a grove of sallows and bubbles up through marshy ground.
Hung on the branches are hundreds of clouties and strips of cloth; these are symbolic prayers for healing or in gratitude of a cure. The chapel is 75 metres along the track, foundations of a 12th C building with a granite altar and a baptismal basin in its n/w corner. During the 17th century a great thorn tree's branches formed a leafy roof over the ruined chapel, and the people used turf to repair a green bank by the altar which they called St.Madern's Bed, and which, of course, sick people lay on and were cured......
Above taken (almost verbatim) from Elizabeth Rees - Celtic Saints in their Landscape.
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Posted by moss
17th February 2006ce
Edited 17th February 2006ce
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