St Gwenfaen’s Well, Anglesey

St Gwenfaen’s Well, Holyhead

We learned about some Gwenfaen’s well when we visited the church of St Cybi in Holyhead. We decided to visit.

There is a church there which is still on the site of her original prayer oratory. It was lovely to find not only a church open for us to visit, but also clearly still in use. We have been really saddened as we have travelled around Anglesey and north Wales to see so many churches closed. I don’t think we have seen a single Methodist chapel that is still open and we have also come across many Anglican churches that are also now disused. It is such a sad reflection on a land that has such his history of Faith and favour from God it’s not that the buildings are important. It’s that the Christian community seems to have dwindled and Faith seems to be struggling.

However there are these amazing historical Christian sites everywhere this well was one we read about the story of her life and the miraculous things that happened she came over with two brothers from Ireland as missionaries and she established her prayer oratory and also this well.

The church was a lovely place to pray, but we wanted to go and find the well because it sounded so unusual. She was known to have an anointing to heal mental illness and they were miracles prescribed to her.

One of the main stories that remains and has been passed down is how she was persecuted by the local Druids she was fleeing from them and they chased her right to the cliff edge and she would’ve gone into the sea however at that point God‘s angels intervened and lifted her right up to heaven so she didn’t die by going over the cliff. It’s so reminiscent of how Elijah was snatched up to heaven.

Anyway it said that the walk to the well was an easy half mile and so we decided to do it. We could see from the OS map that it was on the cliff edge and we set off.

We are so glad we didn’t know just how long the walk was because it was near a 4 miles or more however the views were incredible. We could look right across to the mountains of Snowdonia we could also see the Llyn Peninsula and it was so clear that we could just pick out Bardsey Island. This was amazing because it was the root of our pilgrimage and the places where we had stopped to pray along the way.

So we kept walking and enjoying the view and going up and down the cliffs but the well was nowhere in sight and we thought we were not going to be able to find it. The farmer had blocked access to his land which was fair enough because there’s a lot of walkers and he had sheep in the fields from the map. It looked like the well was on the private land and we wouldn’t be able to get to it which was disappointing. We were just talking about this when suddenly I looked around and we had stumbled across the well.

I think God must’ve been chuckling at our conversation waiting for us to see that we were actually right out the well.

The Medieval structure is still there. It is a stone built well with steps leading down to a well chamber. There are four seats in each corner and an area of water then the water lit out into another area that is bigger on the other side of the wall where people could walk down steps and immerse themselves. It is sunken right into the land which is why we hadn’t initially seen it.

We decided to walk down and sit on this on the seats we we dipped our hands in the water and prayed. The dog had a very long sweet drink from the water which often does at holy Wells that are still thin places she seems to recognise the atmosphere impurity of the place.

This was a very special holy well. It truly was a thin place in the spirit realm. It didn’t feel polluted by anything or cold or dark which is off the case at these places. Faith came easily and the whole place resonated with the presence of God and a sense of an angel there guarding the well.

We linger for quite awhile, but we’re where we still had a long walk back. But it was so worth the walk both for the experience at the well and the views.

On the way back, we passed the Cove that is still named after Gwenfaen where she was reputedly taken up to heaven. Even the fact the cove is still named after her points to this hagiographic story as having some foundation it is easy in the modern world to dismiss stories that were not written down however we must not forget that the Bardic oral tradition of Celtic lands particularly of Wales were strong stories were passed down by word-of-mouth just like they did in the Jewish tradition. Yes, they may have been written down centuries later once writing had been introduced but that element of truth can still remain within the stories. We can’t verify them except by looking at locations at the structure of some of the lands that these prayer cells were built on and the locations all of which point directly back to these incredible people who set up these prayer movements and these monastic communities. Their impact must’ve been phenomenal because so many places are named after them they impacted the whole of the land and whilst many people want to go back and emphasise the pre-Christian druidic traditions those very druids were drawn to the good news that these Celtic Christians were bringing they wanted it they are very it wasn’t forced upon them but they liked what they saw and there isn’t a single name remaining of the Druids but there’s hundreds of names remaining of these Celtic Christians and I honour them for their courage, their commitment and their obedience.

 So would I encourage you to go to Gwenfaen’s well? Absolutely! Modern Christianity offer so much but embracing an older layer of community prayer pilgrimage hospitality the word of God worship nature can add such a richness to our walk of Faith. I would encourage anybody to go on a pilgrimage and visit some of these places.