The walk down Well Street is a journey in time from a modern, bustling town to an age of faith and miracles. The vast numbers who made it testify to the reputation of St Winefride's Holy Well as 'the Lourdes of Wales'. One of the 'Seven Wonders of Wales', it is renowned for curing nervous disorders.
St Winefride, or Gwenffrewi in Welsh, after whom the well is named, lived in the 7th century and was the daughter of a local chief. Her mother, Gwenlo, was the sister of St Beuno, who instructed her in the Christian faith. Her uncle also gained a reputation for restoring to life people who had lost their heads — legend has it that when their heads were cut off, he put them back on their bodies. The miracle may have been that the saint helped them to recover their sanity, and so it was with his niece Winefride. Caradog, the chieftain of Hawarden, frightened her and cut off her head; Beuno restored it and made Caradog melt away.
The severed head was credited with landing where the holy well, or spring, is now. Winefride became a nun, then went to Gwytherin in Denbighshire to be the abbess of a convent. Regular services are held, and the tradition is for pilgrims to pass through the water three times. Henry V came here in 1415 before the Battle of Agincourt, while James II and Queen Mary prayed (successfully) for a son in 1686.
The Battery Works were built in 1766, and pots and pans were made from brass sheets. The finished goods were exported to Africa, where they were traded for slaves.
The dismantled railway began life in 1869 as a link between the town of Holywell and its port at Greenfield on the Dee Estuary. It was soon abandoned, only to be developed in 1912 as a branch of the Chester and Holyhead Railway. Before its closure in 1954, its little train steamed up a 1-in-27 gradient.
Wat's Dyke predates Offa's Dyke, having been built by his predecessor, Æthelbald, who ruled Mercia from 716 to 757. This border earthwork between the Welsh and the Mercians ran from Holywell to the south of Oswestry.
Basingwerk Abbey was founded by the Cistercians in 1132. The monks built the first watermills in this valley — to grind corn and operate a fulling mill to process the wool from the sheep they introduced.
A large waterwheel powered Victoria Mill, which was built in 1785 as a cotton mill but later used as a corn mill. Rolled copper sheets were once produced at Meadow Mill.
Acknowledgment: Text derived from the Out and Out Series; Discovering the Countryside on Foot. Pictures courtesy of Wikipedia.
