St. Helen's Wells, Eshton + St. Helen's Well at Kildwick???

Paul Hornby from Earby recently pointed out an old 19th century reference to the famous St. Helen's Well at Eshton, near Gargrave, where there aint just one holy well here, but another of the same name just a few hundred yards away! Has anyone checked this up? Or izzit just a mistake? Mr Hornby has looked at the two sites and found there to be two springs of water. A trip to have a look at the place would seem a good idea in the coming weeks. Anyone fancy a trip out there? (we have the Giant's Graves and a few other sites in the locale we could look at aswell).

In more recent years, Val Shepherd writes about another supposed St. Helen's Well she reckons to be at Kildwick, near Skipton (at SE 0052 4660). I've looked at the alleged holy well, and searched for old references, field-name listings, etc, but can find no other references to this place. Has she made it up, made a mistake, or does anyone know of other references to validate this?

Cheers - Paul

There is a possible St Helen's Well at Draughton about 1 mile north-east of Skipton. I can't find anything regarding a St Helen's well at Kildwick, though Kildwick is not far from Skipton.

Paul, as far as I know there is only one St Helen's Well at Eshton near Gargrave, unless another spring rises from it close by. The well is on the Megalithic Portal.

Not far from St Helen's holy well at Eshton, in the woods next to it, there is another spring.This flows into the stream at the side, but I have not heard it called St Helen's Well no2. But its a nice little spring that flows out from the bank and on into the stream, though it is a bit hidden away in the trees and wellies are needed!

[img][/img]

Hello Danny, I visited St Helen's Well at Eshton a couple of months back with my father, he is the only driver. When I visited there were no rags tied to the tree and as I didn't have willies on, I couldn't really have a feel around in the water and mud, the only stonework that I observed were a curved live of stones towards the front of the large pool of water, and other stones further to one side. I believed there to be some stone heads buried in the mud but, as I say, nothing visible at this time. We went to Gargrave Church (St Andrew's) and found some parts of Saxon crosses behind the altar, and also an oblong stone with an inscription on it of large lettering along with some other carvings, but all this was very worn and difficult to make out. I might be able to journey that way in the New Year all being well. I wanted to visit the well as I had just recently lost my mother following a long period of poor health and frailty, and felt she might have liked to be there, if only in spirit. My mother was 93 years of age. I did take photos in St Andrew's - these are on another website, maybe you could view those. I had also heard that St Helen's was a rag well, but I was skeptical of this at the time.