Attached is a link the the megalithic web site with a picture in Busbridge
church, Surrey, of what I believe to be Lady Well at nearby Tuesley - not
sure how old the glass is but the scene represented must be medieval.
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=11034
Regards
Dave Woods
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Buckley" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2005 11:53 AM
Subject: Wells in stained glass windows
> 'The English Church' by Tim Tatton-Brown and John Crook includes pix of
the
> windows at St Neot, Cornwall, showing the life of Neot and dated to
1520s.
> St Neot's well is shown as a low, round stone structure with an outflow at
> the side - through a lion mask somewhat akin to foliate heads - surrounded
> by grass with daisies (therefore outdoors). An earlier window at Exeter
> Cathedral shows Sidwell with her well, also round (though apparently
> covered) and with an outflow, but less helpful on its setting.
>
> As restored, St Neot's Well bears little or no resemblance to the window.
> Sidwell's well just outside Exeter, as it survived into 18th or 19th C,
had
> a well house around the spring. Windows were usually not made at the
> location where they were installed; do the St Neot's and Exeter windows
have
> any claim to authentic medieval representation, or are they adding to
> confusion between shaft wells and springs, because the artists imagined
them
> as shaft wells? Well houses could be later additions, of course - the one
at
> St Kenelm's Well on the Sudeley estate just outside Winchcombe dates from
> the 1570s, and apparently uses stone from the abbey church. Are there any
> other medieval representations of springs or spring heads?
>
> (The Neot window also refers to a motif in the legend whereby the saint
> restored to life two fish which had lived in the well, but which had been
> killed by a servant. Elizabeth Rees ('Celtic Sites and their Saints')
> remarks that the 12th C legend was apparently written at the Benedictine
> abbey of Bec - in Normandy, but associated with England through Lanfranc
and
> Anselm, and with English land-holdings. She comments that several Irish
> motifs were incorporated into Neot's legend. Which suggests how synthetic
> hagiography could be.)
>
> Christine Buckley
>
>
>
> --
> No virus found in this outgoing message.
> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.14.9/216 - Release Date: 29/12/2005
>
|