St Ethelbert's Well, Marden

Dedication: Saint Ethelbert

Location: St Mary's Church

Coordinates: 52.11969N, -2.71453W

Grid reference: SO511470

Heritage designation: Grade I listed building

Ethelbert II was King of the East Angles during the late 8th century. According to tradition, he was a devout and virtuous ruler, reputedly showing his piety from a very young age. As Jerome Porter, writing in 1632 in volume 1 of The Flowers of the Lives of the Most Renowned Saincts, claimed, whilst other children were "ſweating in the duſtie exerciſes of their youthfull games", Ethelbert was "deuoutly weeping in the Church at his prayers". After taking the throne from his father, King Ethelred, at some point in the later years of the 700s, Ethelbert decided to marry Alfred, the daughter of King Offa of Mercia. Before their marriage, Ethelbert travelled to Mercia to meet with Alfred, and King Offa is said to have entertained him at Sutton Walls, a hillfort that is traditionally believed to be the site of a palace of King Offa, located less than a mile away from St Ethelbert's Well. Here, Offa's wife, Cynethrith, reputedly ordered her husband (through jealousy that had been sparked by her daughter's incessant praising of Ethelbert's virtues) to have the saintly king murdered. Legend has it that Ethelbert was there decapitated, and then buried unceremoniously on the banks of the River Lugg, reputedly on the site of Marden parish church; however, his body was moved two days later after a local man had experienced a heavenly vision in which Ethelbert commanded him to take his relics to Hereford. When the saint's body was removed from the banks of the river, a spring is said to have miraculously appeared, thus becoming St Ethelbert's Well.

There is certainly some truth in this legend, which undoubtedly remains unchanged, or at least mostly unchanged, from the medieval version of the tale that pilgrims to St Ethelbert's Well would have been familiar with. It is probable that King Offa himself had Ethelbert killed, and not out of jealousy, but as a key move to expand his already sizeable kingdom; in fact, he certainly did attain East Anglia as a result of Ethelbert's murder. Indeed, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, dating from the late 9th century, simply states that "Offa, King of the Mercians, commanded the head of King Aethelberht to be struck off". It is also probable that Sutton Walls did once house a palace of King Offa, and, if so, then there can be almost no doubt that Ethelbert was slaughtered there, given its proximity to the holy well: if this event did not occur here, then there would be no justification for a Kentish king's cult to evolve in the area. It is popularly claimed today that Offa himself constructed a church on the site of the first grave of Ethelbert (and thus the well) upon the orders of Pope Adrian I, after travelling on a pilgrimage to Rome immediately after the murder to seek advice; unfortunately this claim rests on very scant evidence, and it would be illogical to suggest that Offa would leave his newly captured kingdom of Kent to travel to Rome. Instead, the well was almost certainly initially housed within a small well-chapel, which must have later been extended and improved using the offerings of pilgrims, until it took the form of a parish church; in essence, the church today is effectively a giant well-chapel.

The well itself was clearly one of the most important in medieval Herefordshire, despite the fact that it is not known whether any specific healing powers were attributed to its waters, or whether any specific rituals were carried out at the site. In fact, its actual appearance in medieval times is a complete mystery, although it likely took the form of some kind of bathing pool. Leland mentioned Marden in his Itinerary, but he did not write of the well, and only referenced the "faire chirche dedicate to" Ethelbert in the village. The earliest detailed mention of its existence that I have been able to find dates from 1632, and can be found in the first volume of Jerome Porter's Lives of the Most Renowned Saincts (as referred to above):

But out of the place where the holy bodie of ſaint ETHELBERT had layne before iſſued forth a fountaine of moſt cleere water, called ſaint ETHELBERTS well, ouer which now ſtands a Church, which without doubt was built in honour of this holy martirs buriall there. For it muſt needes be ſome ſtrange motiue that made men build a Church in that place, which is within tenne yards of the riuer , which at euerie floud ouerflowes it ſoe, that it cannot be come at but by boate. The well I haue ſeene my ſelf, it is of a moſt pure water, and much eſteemed of all good Chriſtians thereabouts: In which one thing to this day is moſt ſtrange and miraculous, that when the riuer adioyning ouerflowes his bankes, and that within the forſayd Church it is knee-deepe and more of that muddie-red water, this Well of ſaint ETHELBERT, allbeit it be quite ouerflowne, yet it remaynes moſt pure and cleere amidſt thoſe troubled waters, vnworthy to be mingled with the puritie thereof. And this I haue heard conſtantly and faythfully affirmed by manie of the Inhabitants thereabouts, who are not aſhamed to acknowledge a miracle done by the meritts of this glorious Sainct, and yet remayne in the blindnes of hereſie to denie the Saincts of their due honour, and worſhip, iudging them as impotent creatures with allmightie God, Whom of his infinite Goodnes we beſeech to giue them grace once to waſh away their blindnes in the indeficient fountayne of his grace, that they may behould and ſee the truth.

Porter's description implies that supposed miracles were still being effected at the well in the early 17th century; it is not clear whether this continued into the 18th or even early 19th centuries, but it had certainly stopped by the late 1800s. There is, unfortunately, simply a lack of historical documentation regarding St Ethelbert's Well, so few particulars of its history are known. When R. C. Hope came to write his Legendary Lore of the Holy Wells of England in 1893, the well was to be seen in the "west end of the nave", where it was "defended by circular stone-work, about ten inches in diameter"; this unusual circular piece of stonework remains unchanged today, although its exact age is unclear, and it almost certainly is not of a medieval date, as it would be too impractical for the use of pilgrims.

When I visited the site in the May of 2025, the well was hidden beneath a Yorkshire Tea table-cloth. A wooden structure has, seemingly recently, been added to the stonework that R. C. Hope described, and a small wooden lid bearing the name of the well covers the stone chamber that the spring is housed within. Although the walls of this subterranean chamber appear medieval, it really is impossible to tell. An unimpressive quantity of water was visible inside this chamber on my visit.