A pleasant evening with Stan Beckensall’s Place Names and Field Names of Northumberland (Fonthill, 2016) yielded several holy wells from a county not otherwise recorded in much detail onomastically. The book is the latest incarnation of work which was originally published in 1970, but I’ll stick to the 2016 ed for now as that’s accessible.
I found Hallywell Leazes in Thirston (p89), Halley Well Butts 1567 in Lesbury (p108), Halleywell Crook Flatt 1620 in Tughall (p117) and Holy Well Field in Newlands (p128). There’s also a list of field-names including Lady Well Cavel (p137), Edinwell derived from St. Aidan (p140), and St. Mary Well (p153) plus a Holy Burn Close (p145). I wrote to Dr. Beckensall to ask if he could identify townships for these, but he kindly got back saying that it was many years since he’d worked on the original book (in which the maps are rather clearer than the 2016 reprint) and memory can’t hold everything, but that his working papers were all at the County Record Office in Woodhorn. So there’s more to be found out if anyone is heading in that direction.
Jeremy Harte
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