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I too cherish the 'purity' of TMA, but it's not as pure as we all think. We have Cornish crosses, ogham stones, Sutton Hoo!, Iron Age stone forts, brochs, souterrains, tree chimneys (they have to go surely?) ... there's quite a list of stuff that breaks the guidelines, but most of the breaks are fuzzy.

I remember a comment by McG a while back about some of them (was it brochs or souterrains?) where Julian was asked what he wanted to do. They stayed - the new book does stretch the time-frame of TMA quite a bit, but it does remain pagan. This, rather than 'pre-historic' is the key to TMA I think (just my thoughts - not set in stone and enforced by a collie :-).

The question with wells is - why were they Christianised? They're hardly churches are they? It doesn't fit that the early Christian missionaries should come into the west and suddenly make wells holy or sacred - unless they were simply handy as baptismal fonts. It seems more likely (or at least equally likely) that the worship of water at springs and wells was so entrenched at the time of their arrival that they had to absorb them into the new religion.

I couldn't have put it better..

I am happy to have the well removed..if that is the general feeling....but as you say what about all t'other things that have arrived over the years.

As for the tree chimneys!

Wells must have been worshiped pre Christian times, or at least used. I was up on Carburrow Tor on the southern edge of Bodmin Moor yesterday. There is a large Bronze Age settlement there plus two big cairns and a supposed quoit. Slap bang in the middle of the settlement is a spring...much walked in by cattle and not the sort of thing you would want to drink from but...

It has never been Christianised....there is a well nearer the modern setlement, much more handy. If there had been a "temple" here it has long dissapeared or fallen amongst the rest of the granite that litters the hillside....we will never know.

Once again we get back to the "in the past 4000 years much has changed, we have no proof" discussion.

Mr H

It seems to me that the argument for holy wells being prehistoric sites could equally apply to churches.

They both:

Are Christianised sites
Are usually named after Christian saints
Usually have a stone structure built in Christian times
May have been used previously by non-Christians
There's usually no visible or written evidence of any use prior to Christianity.

Here's one of the churches on here which I don't think belongs:

http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/4529

The presence of sarsens in the vicinity indicates to me that the stone wasn't used, if they had of been used then they wouldn't be merely sarsens.