folks, hi
Having recently aquired a copy of James Rattue's "The Living Stream",
and being a Southampton resident, I was fascinated by his tantalising
theory of the shire-well site in Southampton. I set off to locate the
two wells he mentions (there are some other named wells, as you'd expect
in a conurbation of this size).
Pylgrimesput was easy enough to locate - it's the earlier name for
Simnel Street, which runs to the long-vanished Pilgrims Gate, later
Biddlesgate. But wherever it was in the hundred and fifty yards of
Simnel Street, it's stretching James's model to the limits to consider
it as co-located with St Michael's church.
Saintemariwell is much harder. I've now exhausted the two cartularies,
the port book, Speed's history, Leland's itinerary, in short everything
that's in the open collections at the university library and in the city
archives, to no avail. The next bit is clearly going to be much more
complex, so before embarking on it (fascinating though I'm sure it will
be) I thought I'd ask the list if anyone else has tried this before,
since I see no point in beating myself up if someone else already knows
the answer.
regards
Andy Anderson
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