Dear Christin,
I've found a book which has some details of English holy wells, and this is the entry for Ladywell.
Jeremy
Lady Well at Lewisham
This appears as the spring-name Lady Well on Treswells’s map of 1592, and as Lady Well on an estate map of 1816 (Smith 1986: 3, 5), after which Ladywell came into use as a settlement name. The parish church is dedicated to the Virgin.
The well is shown in a lithograph by Henry Warren, c.1820 (Smith op. cit. 8, 10–11) and in an engraving by Knight (1842: 58–9). A map of 1855 shows the well in what was then Brockley Lane, but would later become Ladywell Road (Smith op. cit. 6). ‘It had a railing of iron round it, was 6 or 7 feet deep, with a small grating at the bottom, where the spring rose, which used to fill the well and flow over’ (Foord 1910: 200–1). According to Clinch (1886) ‘two of the old wells were in existence until the year 1866, when they were ignominiously destroyed by the construction of a sewer’, but the coping-stones of the old Lady Well were salvaged by a signalman and in 1896 they were rebuilt as part of a fountain in the grounds of the Ladywell Public Baths (Foord ibid., with drawing).
Smith has a modern legend, ‘told by some locals frequenting the Ladywell Tavern, is of two nuns regularly visiting the Well and one being murdered, this tale being immortalised in the inn sign at the very same public house’.
The woe waters mentioned by Warkworth in his Chronicle for 1472 as rising as Lewisham have been identified with this spring (Foord ibid.), although there does not seem to be any evidence for this.
-----Original Message-----
From: Wells and Spas - The email discussion list for Holy Wells. [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of stephen buckley
Sent: 16 September 2015 16:16
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Ladywell Baths
Wondered if the name Ladywell preceded the baths building, and if at any time there had been a spring perhaps associated with the parish church if it was medieval. Found
http://www.lewishamparish.com/history.html
The present dedication of the church is BVM, which would tie in with Ladywell. (Looks as if the link with the Ghent church was broken by Henry V's actions against 'alien' religious houses.)
Christine B
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Message Received: Sep 16 2015, 03:21 PM
From: "Chris J Brady" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Cc:
Subject: Ladywell Baths
Not sure if these are relevant but thought folks would be interested.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34262313
Ladywell Baths, Lewisham, south London - (Grade II, 1884) When the gothic baths opened, newspapers reported that cleanliness was next to godliness as they were so close to the parish church. Innovatively, to avoid paying the water company, the owners sunk a 270ft (82m) well, yielding 8,000 gallons of water an hour. The baths have lain empty for many years and have been vandalised. Lewisham Council has struggled to find anyone to take the building on.
Chris B.
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