Saints in Scottish Place-Names
Funded by a Leverhulme Trust Project Grant
St Teneu's Well, Glasgow
Grid reference
NS 587 649 (general (1km))
Six-figure easting & northing
258700 664900
Latitude
55.8565827289427
Longitude
-4.257674362569315
County
Lanarkshire
Nearby places
St Enoch Square, Glasgow (0.12 miles)
St Enoch's Church, former chapel, Glasgow (0.12 miles)
St Theneu's Gait, Glasgow (0.14 miles)
St George's-Tron Parish Church, Glasgow (0.33 miles)
St Vincent Street, Glasgow (0.45 miles)
Object Classification
Water
Is linear feature?
No
Notes
The location of the well is inferred from 'A Map of Glasgow and Adjoining distric, about the year 1650, compiled to illustrate "Charters and Documents relating to the City of Glasgow, 1175-1649", ed. James D. Marwick (Glasgow 1897). The well is discussed by Andrew Macgeorge in 'Old Glasgow: the Place and the People from the Roman Occupation to the Eighteenth Century' (Glasgow 1880) 145: 'Not far from the present church, and near where the old chapel had stood, there was a sacred well dedicated to St. Tanew, which, before the Reformation, was much resorted to for cures. In 1586 James VI addressed a letter to Mr. Andro Hay, commissioner for the west country, in which, among other things, he condemned the practice of people making pilgrimages to such chapels and wells; but I have little doubt that for some time after that St. Tanew's well was resorted to. It was shaded by an old tree which drooped over the well, and which remained till the end of the last century. On this tree the devotees who frequented the well were accustomed to nail, as thank-offerings, small bits of tin-iron probably manufactured for that purpose by a craftsman in the neighbourhood representing the parts of the body supposed to have been cured by the virtues of the sacred spring such as eyes, hands, feet, ears, and others a practice still common in Roman Catholic countries. The late Mr. Robert Hart told me that he had been informed by an old man, a Mr. Thomson, who had resided in the neighbourhood, that, at the end of the last century or the beginning of the present, he recollected this well being cleaned out, and of seeing picked out from among the debris at the bottom several of these old votive offerings, which had dropped into it from the tree, the stump of which was at that time still standing. '
Relationships with other parishes
Within Glasgow, parish
Relationships with other places
Adjacent St Enoch Square, Glasgow
Adjacent St Enoch's Church, former chapel, Glasgow
Adjacent St Theneu's Gait, Glasgow
Names
1 head-name linked to this place ?St Teneu's Well
Head name
St Teneu's Well
Place
St Teneu's Well, Glasgow
Certainty that this name applies to this place
Certain
The status of this name is
Obsolete
Is this a current OS form? ?
No
Is this the original referent of the place?
Yes
Is the association of this name to this object hypothetical?
No
Saints in this place-name
Thenew, Thaney, Enoch (ns) (certain)
Thenew, mother of Kentigern (certain)
Relationships with other place names
Same specific as St Enoch Square, St Enoch Square, Glasgow
Same specific as St Enoch's Church, St Enoch's Church, former chapel, Glasgow
Same specific as St Theneu's Gait, St Theneu's Gait, Glasgow
Same specific as Vicus Sanctae Tenau, St Theneu's Gait, Glasgow