Scheduled Ancient Monument: LADY'S WELL (HOLY WELL AND MOAT) (SF201)

Lady's Well (Holy Well and Moat) (& site of chapel ?). Fragments of an irregular, isolated and unoccupied moat. 300 yards NE of St Mary's Church, Woolpit. Lady's Well, situated at base of S portion of moat at TL 9763 6264. The water of the well was said to be beneficial for sore eyes. The water has been analysed but has no medical properties (R1). Note, according to (S4) water was analysed in the late 1970s and found to be high in sulphate and more mineralised than other sources in the Bury area. The well, 1971, was encased in brickwork with a metal capping. The name & tradition were still known locally (R1). 'In a close near the east end of the church, is a spring, which is still called our Lady's Spring. Tradition reports, that the church formerly contained a shrine to the Virgin Mary, to which pilgrims resorted and that there was a chapel near the spring; but no vestiges of it are now left. The spring is quadrangular, and bricked, and supplied a large moat with very clear water' (S1). '... and in a meadow near the church is a large moated area, having in its centre a fine spring called Lady's Well, said to possess medicinal virtues for the cure of sore eyes, and have anciently had a chapel near it' (S2). Moat measures about 66m x 40m internally. The NE, N & W sides are waterfilled, the S & SE are dry save for a trickle of water from the Lady's Well. SE angle is filled in. No trace of buildings within (R1). Scheduled Monument.The earliest reference to the well is in a manorial extent of 1574 which in turn refers to an earlier survey (S4).