I'm having trouble! I can't find my paper map so I'm stuck with the tiny window on the world that the Ordnance Survey Website provides - it only shows you a few inches of the map at a time so it's hard to scan large areas. I found Worm Hill no bother at all (NZ310541), but Worm's Rock and Worm's Well are proving elusive. The story says that he threw the Worm into Worm's Well as he travelled back to Lambton Hall from fishing in the Wear. I take it that Lambton Hall is Lambton Castle? Anyway, I've searched around Penshaw, Worm Hill & Lambton Castle and there's no sign of Worm's Well. I wonder if its still called this, despite what the story says. There's a Lambton Well, near Lambton Castle - actually, the area seems to have a number of "wells" (Virgin Well, Gill Well). And no sign at all of Worm's Rock. It's supposed to be an island in the middle of the Wear. I couldn't find any sign of even one such island on the map. If my papery map don't turn up then I'll need to get a new one anyway - I think I'll stand a much better chance once this happens.
There's also alleged to be a Lambton Hill somewhere in the area, and I wonder if this was also significant. It could be the area's equivalent of the many Saint Michael hilltops across a lot of Britain and beyond (Saint Michael was a dragon-slayer, and a number of writers have suggested that he's a thinly disguised pre-Christian deity).
