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