St Winifred'S Well

OSWESTRY RURAL C.P. SJ 32 SW 10/222

WOOLSTON

St. Winifred's Well (formerly listed as the Well House in West Felton C.P.)

19.1.52

II*

Holy well and well house. Probably late C15/early C16 on earlier site, later additions and alterations. Well: regularly coursed dressed sandstone blocks; cottage: timber framed with painted brick infill, slate roof. Cottage is a single-storey T-plan with gable projecting over well. Framing: massive close-set vertical posts throughout with V-struts from collar to gable; boarded-over window to left of central boarded door on north side, integral yellow brick end stack to right with original shaped window-head below largely obscured by wooden lean-to. Well: consists of inner chamber over spring beneath cottage approached through narrow entrance to right; this inner chamber has a round-headed outer arch over low stone wall with moulded rectangular (? image) niche above, leading into a rectangular stone basin; this has a flight of four steps to each side and the water drains through a hole in the wall at the bottom end into a square basin below; this is also approached by steps to left and right and the water drains through a hole at its bottom end into the stream below.

Interior: inspection not possible at time of re-survey (July 1985) but said to contain an arch-braced collar beam roof in three bays with cusped struts forming quatrefoils and cusped wind braces. The well commemorates the miracle of a spring gushing forth on the spot where the body of the C7 Saint Winifred rested on its journey from Holywell to Shrewsbury; the present structure was probably built at the expense of Margaret, Countess of Beaufort, wife of Henry VII, who also re-built the larger pilgrimage centre at Holywell. A datestone said to be inscribed 1635 at the right of the entrance to the well's inner chamber was not visible at time of re-survey and there is no evidence to support the suggestion that the structure above the well was once a chapel.

This entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 26 October 2016.