It is believed that St Ann’s Well is named after St Anne, the patron saint of springs and wells. However, James McKay, a 19th century antiquarian, thought that “St Ann’s Well – in it’s primary form [means] simply the well dedicated to the sun.” He speculated that Worcestershire Beacon may have been known as St Ann’s Hill or Tan Hill after Tanfana the Belgic God of Fire, and St Ann may be a modification of that name.
The Rev. Canon Bazeley wrote in 1922: “Whilst the conquerors of the Severn Valley in 577 remained heathen, their god Woden or Odin was the patron saint of wells. On the conversion of the Hwicce to Christianity the mission priests, who found it impossible to change the superstitious customs of their converts, often gave the the wells a guardian saint. The healing well near Berkeley escaped the change, and is still called Wanswell or Woden’s Well, but many were handed over to St Anne and worshipped much as before. I do not know why or when St Anne was selected as the successor of Woden, unless it be the similarity of her name to Wan [Woden].”
More recently, folklorist Roy Ernest Palmer has suggested that St Ann’s Well may have been dedicated to the Celtic water goddess, Anu, the first of the female trinity of the Morrigan, while local artist and historian Rose Garrard has associated the well with European and Middle eastern fertility goddesses such as Anat and the Roman’s Anna Perenna, Goddess of the Wheel of the Year.
St Werstan
Following extensive research local historians Bruce Osborne and Cora Weaver have proposed that St Ann is a contraction of St Werstan.
Werstan was a monk of Deerhurst monastery, near Tewkesbury. When the monastery was destroyed by Danes, Werstan fled through Malvern Chase and found sanctuary on the Malvern Hills. Werstan established a chapel on the hillside below St Ann’s Well and was beheaded by Celts for usurping a sacred place.
The Founders’ Window, a medieval stained glass window in Great Malvern Priory, depicts the vision of St Werstan, the consecration of the chapel and his martyrdom.
Great Malvern Priory
It is thought that St Ann’s Well was also used by the monks from Worcester living in a hermitage on the Hills when they were building Great Malvern Priory in 1085.
Healing Water
There are references to St Ann’s Well in the 13th Century and the quality of Malvern spring water was appreciated in the medieval period. The purity of St Ann’s Well in particular was well known in the 15th century as a curative for the “many maladies suffered by mediaeval folk”.
An old song attributed to the Rev. Edmund Rea, who became Vicar of Great Malvern in 1612, celebrates the healing properties of the well:
Out of thy famous Hille
There daily springeth
A water passing still
That always bringeth
Great comfort to alle them
That are diseased men
And makes them well again
So Prayse the Lord!
St Ann’s Well becomes Popular
St Ann’s Well is recorded on maps of the Foley Estates from 1744, however St Ann’s Well did not become significant until the 19th Century.
In 1805 Dr A. Philips Wilson carried out analysis on St Ann’s Well as a follow up to the work carried out in 1742 by Dr John Wall. The analysis brought St Ann’s Well fresh fame and attracted visitors away from Malvern Wells to Great Malvern instead. In 1813 a well house was built by Lady Emily Foley, the owner of the spring and much of the land surrounding it. The well house was let to the Clifton family, who supplied refreshments and hot and cold baths.
In order to capitalise on the growing attraction for “taking the waters” by the wealthy middle and upper classes in Britain, Great Malvern invested in leisure facilities such as the Foley Arms Hotel (1810) and the classical style Royal Library (1819). The royal Library is now Barclays Bank at the top of Edith Walk. St Ann’s Well and Great Malvern reached such distinguished heights that, in 1830, the Duchess of Kent and Princess Victoria (then only 12 years old) came to Malvern. The young Princess opened Victoria Drive, the new twisting path replacing the smaller zig-zag path as the main route to St Ann’s Well before going to drink at the Well.
The Cold Water Cure Arrives
In 1842 Dr James Wilson, who had experienced the ‘Cold Water Cure’ popularised in Europe by Vincent Priessnitz, arrived in Great Malvern with Dr James Gully and they set up their own version. The two doctors leased the Crown Hotel on Belle Vue Terrace and renamed it Cherbourg House after the spa town in Selesia (now part of Poland), where Wilson had learned the Priessnitz Water Cure. The Patients were wealthy and many of those that benefited from ‘The Cure’ did so because their illnesses were due to overeating and excessive alcohol consumption. Their cures were attributed to the Priessnitz health package, consisting of pure water, pure and proper diet, regular exercise and lifestyle changes, all of which worked wonders.
A Typical Day for a Water Cure Patient
A typical day of the water cure treatment involved rising at 5 or 6am wrapped in cold wet sheets and covered in a quilt for an hour. The patient was then unwrapped and placed in a portable bath while cold water was poured over him or her, followed by a “friction rub” with a rough towel. Now, fully awake and invigorated, the patient was sent up the hills to drink from the springs, particularly St Ann’s Well. All this was before breakfast, which was plain and included more water. The rest of the morning was spent resting, interspersed with the odd Sitz bath where you sat fully clothed in it for anything up to 60 minutes.
The afternoon was for walking or carriage rides around the surrounding district to places such as Eastnor. Visits to St Ann’s Well were particularly popular, perhaps they provided an opportunity for an illicit snack for hungry patients. At 5pm there were more hydropathic baths. Tea was served at 7pm and was slightly plainer than breakfast. After a “Hydropathic Ball” with dancing to the Rhine String Band from Germany, patients were sent to bed early early in preparation for another early awakening the next day.
Patients received the treatment for a minimum of 3 weeks, after which they were fit for the douche at midday! Many famous people came to the area for the water cure including Lord Tennyson, Charles Darwin and his youngest daughter Annie (who sadly died and is buried in Great Malvern Priory churchyard) and Florence Nightingale (who came to recover after her work during the Crimean War).
Great Malvern Prospered
All of Malvern prospered from the healing reputation of Malvern’s spring water. Lea, Perrins and Burrow’s, the chemist on Belle Vue Terrace had begun to sell spring water and soda water. They owned the sole rights to bottling and selling water from Holy Well and St Ann’s Well. In 1850 the Burrows brothers bought out Lea and Perrins, taking over bottling rights and the chemists whilst Lea and Perrins went on to other things, such as making Worcestershire Sauce.
In 1860 to provide further facilities at St Ann’s Well to the ever growing number of tourists, and octagonal building was attached to the earlier well room. This is now a tea room with a function room above. To capitalise on the tourist trade John Down Senior, a photographer, established his camera obscura on the St Ann’s Delight (just above St Ann’s Well) where the light was brighter than in the town so exposures were shorter. He processed his pictures in St Ann’s Well water which was free from organic matter and low in minerals, thus ensuring the permanence of his photographs.
A Decline in the Water Cure Business
The cold water cure had been booming for 25 years in Great Malvern when disaster struck, with the death of Water Cure founder, Dr James Wilson in January 1867; Dr Fergusson took over his practice. Five years later, to the consternation of the town, Dr Gully suddenly left Malvern to live near an ex patient, Florence Campbell. The subsequent affair finished when she married Charles Bravo. The marriage ended soon after when her husband died of antimony poisoning. The poison was traced to Malvern and Dr Gully’s groom thus involving the doctor whose affair was exposed. The case became the most famous unsolved murder of the nineteenth century. The Cold Water Cure continued for a further 33 years with Dr Fergusson but numbers declined. Then in 1905 the water supply to his establishment became contaminated and three patients got typhoid, the press had a field day and his practice never recovered closing in bankruptcy in 1913.
Even with the Water Cure less popular, entertainment was still available at St Ann’s Well. George Pullen a blind musician walked from Storridge each day to play his harmonium for visitors. He played every day for over fifty years until his death in February 1936, and in doing so achieved local fame.
St Ann’s Well Restored for the Future
While the Water Cure declined St Ann’s Well was not allowed to, and the owner Lady Emily Foley still contributed to the Well. In 1862 the original spout and basin donated by Dr Gully was removed and placed in the grounds of the Mount Pleasant Hotel. The new basin and spout was commissioned by Lady Foley and designed and made from white marble by William Forsyth of Malvern.
A plaque above the spout reads:
Drink of this crystal fountain
And praise the loving Lord
Who from the rocky mountain
This living stream out-poured
Fit emblem of Holy Fount
That flows from God’s eternal mount
Lady Foley died in 1900 and the estate passed on to her nephew’s family. It was finally sold by Sir John Foley Grey in 1925, at which point the Malvern Hills Conservators took on the deeds of St Ann’s Well.
Ley Lines
In the early 1920’s Herefordshire author, photographer and amateur archaeologist, Alfred Watkins, proposed that St Ann’s Well was the start of a ley line (an alignment between prehistoric and historic structures and prominent landmarks) that runs along the Malvern Hills ridge through several wells including the Holy Well, Walms Well and St Pewtress Well.
In Early British Trackways (1922) Watkins gives another example of a ley line that he believed passed through Great Malvern Priory and St Ann’s Well to Little Mountain (Westbrook) via Arthur’s Stone, Cross End, Moccas Church, Monnington Church, Credenhill Court, Pipe and Lyde Church, and Beacon Hill.
Muriel Bell, St Ann’s Pottery and Waldo Lanchester
In 1932 Muriel Bell established St Ann’s Pottery in an old coach house near Bello Squardo, below St Ann’s Well. Two years later she met puppeteer Waldo Lanchester (brother of Elsa Lanchester) who was searching for a location to set up his marionette theatre for the Malvern Festival. Lanchester erected a marquee opposite St Ann’s Pottery and gave daily performances throughout the summer of 1934.
They married in 1935 and in 1936 established the 50-seat Lanchester Marionettes Theatre at Foley House in Worcester Road. It was opened by Sir Barry Jackson and George Bernard Shaw attended the inaugral performance.
Elgar: Portrait of a Composer
In 1962 a young Ken Russell filmed several scenes for Elgar: Portrait of a Composer on the Malvern Hills, including Elgar and his wife taking the waters at St Ann’s Well. The drama documentary established his reputation as a film maker and he went on to make Tommy, Women in Love, The Devils, Altered States and The Lair of the White Worm.
Controversy
By 1963 St Ann’s Well was in a poor state and was proving something of a liability for the Malvern Hills Conservators whose committee voted to demolish the octagonal building. However, the public’s previous apathy to the site was transformed by the prospect of losing the building and they protested against the Conservators’ decision. The following year the Conservators voted again on the matter and on the occasion decided to restore and maintain rather than demolish.
Earth Mysteries and the Malvern Ley
During the 1960’s and 70’s, Alfred Watkins theories about ley lines were revived by members of the counterculture and the Earth Mysteries movement. In The Ley Hunter’s Companion (1979) Paul Devereux describes a 10-mile alignment he called the “Malvern Ley” which starts at St Ann’s Well and proceeds through the Wyche Cutting, a section of the Shire Ditch, Midsummer Hill and Whiteleaved Oak, where the three counties of Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire meet, and where “the mysterious geomantic circle and decagon touching Stonehenge, Glastonbury and other sites has it’s centre.”
Malvern Kites
In 1982 Malvern Kites opened a showroom in the Octagon Room. The showroom was open every weekend and Bank Holiday from March to December and showcased an unrivalled stock of Kites, line, and ephemera. They also ran their own ‘kiteflyers cafe’ where customers could be refreshed with a meal or a cream tea.
Malvern Kites moved to ‘The Warehouse’ in Unicorn Yard, St Ann’s Road in 1985. The building was later demolished and is now the site of the pay and display car park behind the Unicorn pub.
Malvern May Day Procession
From 1995 until 1999 St Ann’s Well was the starting point for the annual Malvern Fringe May Day Procession.
The procession was a colourful celebration of Malvern eccentricity. The traditional Bardic Address would be delivered by Jai Hill, the Bard of Malvern, from the balcony of the Octagon Room, before the procession was led by Malvern Samba Band down Victoria Drive, St Ann’s Road and Church Street to Priory Park where the main May Day event was held.
Nigel Kennedy and Kafka
In the mid-1990’s Nigel Kennedy, the violinist and violist, rehearsed and recorded in the Octagon Room. The music video for the opening track of Kafka (1996), Autumn Regrets, was filmed in the Octagon Room.
Malvern Well Dressing
Every year Malvern’s numerous and numinous springs and wells, including St Ann’s Well, are decorated or dressed – a practice that can be traced back to the 12th century. The Malvern Well Dressing tradition was revived by Malvern Spa Association in 1998 and is now held annually on the May Day weekend.
Restoration
In 1999 the Conservators carried out restoration to the well room and spout which was suffering from damp and in 2005 restoration work was carried out in the tea gardens around the Well, including recreation of the original fern leaf benches. The pond below the Well was restored and the spout and trough to the right of the well room was reconnected and named Old Moses Spout after one of the donkeys used by visitors to ride up to the well.
The work was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. The Malvern Heritage Project was managed by the Malvern Hills AONB Partnership and supported by Worcestershire County Council. The work was carried out in collaboration with the Malvern Hills Conservators, the site owners, and in consultation with the Malvern Spa Association.
On December 9th, 2005 over 100 people gathered to celebrate the completion of the work. Jonathan Penley played harp music from the balcony of the Octagon Room and sang an 18th century poem, Hydropata, which he had set to music:
Oh Malvern never envy thou
The springs enroled by fame
Since Wall’s ingenious pen has now
Immortalised thy name
Henceforth shall rapturous poets sing
Of Helicon no more;
The waters of thy purer spring
Can boast superior power.
We too of inspiration tell,
As bards who drink shall feel,
The streams from Malvern’s holy well
Can both inspire and heal.
Blessing of the Waters
An interfaith “Blessing of the Waters” service was held on May Day at St Ann’s Well between 2008 and 2017. The service was preceded by a revived May Day Procession which made it’s way from the medieval Abbey Gateway in Great Malvern to St Ann’s Well.
Organised and led by Rev. Val Needham, the service and procession celebrated the history and myths of Malvern’s healing water and featured songs, chants and blessings from many faiths including a re-enactment of the endless battle between the Holly King and the Oak King – personifications of winter and summer.
A New Lease of Life
In 2017 essential restoration and refurbishment work was carried out by the Malvern Hills Conservators on the Grade II listed building giving it a new lease of life.
St Ann’s Well Cafe reopened to the public in spring 2018.
Pilgrimage Renaissance
In 2019 the British Pilgrimage Trust launched the St Wulfstan Day Way, an 11 mile pilgrimage route from St Ann’s Well to Worcester Cathedral and the ‘Grave of the Unknown Pilgrim’.