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Ffynnon Sadwrn, Llandudno

Dedication: Saint Sadwrn Farchog? Location: Penrhyn-side Coordinates: 53.32226, -3.79379 Grid reference: SH806820 Heritage designation: none

St Sadwrn Farchog ("Sadwrn [the] Knight"), brother of the famed St Illtyd, was among the group of Brittonic missionaries who travelled to Wales with St Cadfan in the 6th century. He is said to have landed on the coast of Anglesey; there, he founded a church (at modern-day Llansadwrn), before moving on to the parish of Llansadwrn in Carmarthenshire, which was reputedly founded by him. He was accompanied on his journey from Brittany to Wales by his wife and cousin, St Canna, who, after Sadwrn's death, re-married and became the mother of St Elian, of nearby Llanelian. Sabine Baring-Gould and John Fisher, in their Lives of the British Saints (1913), identify two Sadwrns, both of the same era: "Sadwrn of Henllan", and "Sadwrn Farchog"; it is possible that the two were actually one and the same.

It is worth noting that Ffynnon Sadwrn may not actually be a medieval holy well: the word "Sadwrn" means "Saturday" in English, so it is quite plausible that the site's name simply means "Saturday Well", possibly indicating that it was linked to some likely post-Reformation tradition to do with using the well on Saturday. Indeed, it is not immediately clear what St Sadwrn's link to Llandudno is, and there is no evidence (apart from the existence of this well) that his cult had a presence here in medieval times.

The earliest mention that I have found of Ffynnon Sadwrn exists in the 1840s tithe schedule of Llandudno parish, which gives the name of the field in which the well was once located as "Ffynnon Sadwrn". The site was clearly known of in the 19th century, as it was given an incredibly brief reference in R. Parry's History and Natural History of Llandudno (1861), which provided no information about it apart from the fact that its name can be translated as "Saturn's Well". It is worth noting that none of the admittedly few historians who mentioned the well in the late 19th century referred to any sort of tradition regarding the well, which could be seen as evidence against the idea that Ffynnon Sadwrn simply means "Saturday Well", a name which surely would have been derived from some sort of tradition.

In fact, yet another theory for the origin of the well's name is that "Ffynnon Sadwrn" really means "Well of Saturn" ("Saturn" being another translation of "Sadwrn"), and that it was perhaps used for some sort of pre-Christian ritual. Owen Jones, writing in 1886 in an article entitled Cantref y Creuddin ("The Hundred of Cantref"), published in Y Geninen, included "Ffynnon Sadwrn yn mhlwyf Llandudno" ("Ffynnon Sadwrn in the parish of Llandudno") in a list of local sites that he believed proved the presence of pre-Christian activity in the area. This is quite plausible: perhaps the well was linked to some sort of pagan cult of the planets, and, when the well was Christianised, it was conveniently given the patronage of a saint whose name was similar to that of the original; this would certainly explain why a dedication to St Sadwrn exists in an area that is otherwise barren of his medieval cult.

Although the Royal Commission failed to mention the well, Sabine Baring-Gould and John Fisher were of the opinion that it was dedicated to St Sadwrn. In their Lives of the British Saints in 1913, they referred to, whilst talking about St Sadwrn, "a Ffynnon Sadwrn, in a neglected condition, in the parish of Llandudno, situated near the Little Orme's head", and noted that a "lane there takes its name from it".

Ffynnon Sadwrn has always been marked and named on historic Ordnance Survey maps, which show that the lane leading to it has been named after the well for some time, although, mysteriously, the well is not included anywhere on the Historic Environment Record (of course, as that database is usually riddled with errors, that is not particularly unfortunate). Several decades ago, the well managed to survive the construction of the housing estate that surrounds it, and still exists to this day, in the centre of a small patch of grass near the roadside. When I visited the site in the May of 2025, there was a small amount of water in the well, which was full of different stones of various sizes. It is not clear how old the structure itself is, but it seems to be built of a mixture of large cut stones and bricks.

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