The Holy Well Spring is what remains of the old Holy Well that gave the township of Halliwell its name.
Near the car park entrance opposite Barrow Bridge chimney is the site of the old Holy Well that once stood beside the road. It is said that the son of the local landowner died by falling into the well and so the well was filled in. I have no details of the former structure but we can see that the water was diverted to the river just below via a culvert. It is this tunnel where the water exits into the stream that is known as Holy Well Spring.
According to a quote from a local paper in the 1950s, the well was that of St Catherine of Sienna - from HLHS
We can also see from the inscription on the memorial stone that the spring was “recovered” 18th August 1849, so presumably there was some earlier structure here.
I used to play down here as a kid and the spring was only accessibly by dropping down the wall where the tunnel mouth is - a very tall wall at the back of the old Brytallium foundry was on the opposite side. Even this tall wall wasn’t too much of an obstacle as we’d sometimes climb up onto the partially collapsed roof and down into derelict or disused parts of the factory to play hide-and-seek. Where one of the houses is today the covered river was exposed for a section right in the middle of a large factory room.
Today the area has been made into some very nice housing and the spring is just at the back of their garden wall. I remember being a bit peeved years later when the local paper announced that the “Lost spring” had been re-discovered by a “local historian”.
To be sure it’s not a spring at all, but a constructed culvert. In fact the construction of the brick tunnel inside is such that it must have been built and then buried rather than tunneled into the hillside. Due to the massive works undertaken on the slopes just above for the barrow bridge chimney and surrounding mills, I would imagine the ground surface to have changed immensely since the time of the old Holy Well.
Still it’s good that when filling in the old Holy Well they went to some trouble to preserve the monument in the form of a stone faced spring.
Around 2008 a couple of friends and I, decided to crawl into the tunnel and see if it led to the base of the old Holy Well. It was terribly cramped inside and the water was clear and icy cold, despite the nice weather outside. I had decided to put my keys and loose change safely zipped into a thigh-pocket on my combats and all this metal had quickly worked it’s way round to directly under my kneecap, it was agony to crawl on. I’m sure it was quite unpleasant for us all but my incessant whining made sure everyone suffered equally.
The tunnel itself didn’t seem to have anything holding the bricks in place and things got pretty wiggly in places. After some considerable distance we came upon a breach in the brickwork where a quantity of soil and clay had intruded and there was a section where the roof had missing bricks and many out-of-place. There was a good quantity of water coming down as well, we decided not to continue further. We could see what looked like a larger chamber ahead and the foremost of our party reported seeing a bootprint in the clay and what looked like a roll of lead sheeting.
Close to the spring is an old stone bridge leading the river from beneath the houses and road. I’m pretty sure this was concealed under a rectangular concrete platform that was part of the floor of the factory above when I was young, but today the bridge can be seen out in the daylight. There were once two stone angels on either side of the bridge and one remains in-situ while the other remains close-by.
I don’t know anything about these ornaments and it seems the layout of the water courses here has been changed quite a bit between the 1849 map (which I think looks as though the bridge structure wasn’t built) and the later maps. Today however, in the modern housing estate it seems a small section of the initial layout has been recreated - not in the location of the bridge though. I reckon the bridgework was constructed between 1849 and 1894, possibly in 1849 at the time the spring was re-covered.
One can only hope the stone angels are rescued ornaments from the original Holy Well of Halliwell.
Stunning waterfalls in Lancashire to visit without leaving the county.
Stunning waterfalls in Manchester to visit without leaving the county.
