HOME - ENGLAND - SCOTLAND - ISLE OF MAN

WALES

The locations on this map are taken directly from the Coflein database and Archwilio, apart from Ffynhonnau Wen, which are taken from the Welsh Place Names website, and directly from both the 1840s Welsh tithe schedule and historic Ordnance Survey maps. A small number of sites shown on this map that are not included on the Historic Environment Record are taken from descriptions that I have come across by chance in a variety of old books; these are mostly lost. If you see an error or know of a holy well that has not found its way onto this map, then please contact me at britishholywells@gmail.com.

Map key:

	Extant holy well
	Destroyed holy well
	Lost holy well
	Dry holy well
	Covered or capped holy well

How to use the map

All of the sites that I have documented have a link in their description (you can click on each point on the map to see this) that will send you to their page on this website. Google maps may send you to an irritating "redirect" page when you click on one of these links, but if you click the link again then it will take you to the webpage.

Locations on the below lists that are annexed with an asterisk are approximate.

A note on Ffynhonnau Wen

A very large number of wells across Wales are known as "Ffynnon Wen", some of them bearing concrete evidence that they were medieval holy wells, others possessing no historical documentation at all. Unlike other medieval holy wells, which can generally be identified simply from their names, sites with the title "Ffynnon Wen" are problematic, mainly as there are several different ways of interpreting the name. Although "Ffynnon Wen" literally means "white well", and could simply refer to a white well, "Wen" is, in lots of cases, likely to be a mutation of "Gwyn" or "Gwen", meaning blessed (in Welsh, as the noun "ffynnon" is feminine, the "G" is dropped on "Gwyn"). There are many known cases of "Ffynnon Wen" directly translating as "Holy Well", for example at Ffynnon Gwern Beuno, Gwyddelwern, which was also known as "Ffynnon Wen". However, it is not clear whether all wells with this name were holy wells; intriguingly, though, there is a notable lack of explicitly named "Holy Wells" in Wales that are not dedicated to saints, so it is possible that wells called "Ffynnon Wen" are the direct Welsh equivalent of wells known in England and Scotland simply as "Holy Well". All Ffynhonnau Wen that I have found reference to (just over 100) are included on this website, with the assumption that most of them, if not all, are medieval holy wells, with a minority probably deriving their names from another source.

Holy Wells by County

Anglesey	Flintshire
Brecknockshire	Glamorgan
Caernarfonshire	Merioneth
Cardiganshire	Monmouthshire
Carmarthenshire	Montgomeryshire
Denbighshire	Pembrokeshire
Radnorshire