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St Chad's Well, Chadshunt

Dedication: Saint Chad Location: Chadshunt House Coordinates: 52.17655, -1.48861 Grid reference: SP350532 Heritage designation: none

St Chad, who is reputed to be the patron saint of "medicinal springs", was a missionary and bishop active in the late 7th century. Although a native of Northumbria, Chad became the first Bishop of Lichfield in his later years, and spent much of his time travelling across Mercia, which was then pagan, and spreading Christianity. His mission appears to have been primarily focused on the area immediately surrounding Lichfield, but it is quite possible that he did venture as far south as Chadshunt, especially given the fact that he was already a great traveller. If he did indeed travel to Chadshunt during his time as Bishop of Lichfield, then he undoubtedly would have baptised his new converts in this holy well. Intriguingly, the churchyard is almost perfectly circular, which in some cases indicates the existence of a pagan holy site; perhaps this was originally a pagan sacred spring that was Christianised by St Chad.

Regardless of whether St Chad actually did visit Chadshunt or not, his medieval cult was definitely present here by the 11th century. However, there is evidence to suggest that the area was associated with the saint as early as the 10th century: according to A. D. Mills' Dictionary of English Place-Names (1998), Chadshunt was recorded as "Ceadeles funtan" in 949. Whilst Mills interprets this as meaning "Spring of a man called Ceadel", the fact that St Chad was also known as "Ceadde" makes it very likely that the name literally means "St Chad's Well" - this would make the holy well at Chadshunt one of the earliest recorded in Britain. In the first volume of The Parishes of the Diocese of Worcester (1889), the Rev. George Miller claimed that the name Chadshunt was derived from "the Tithing or Hundred of St. Chad", but it is worth noting that the element "hunt" is evidently a corruption of "funtan", rendering this explanation implausible.

By 1086, according, at least, to the Domesday Book, the name "Ceadeles funtan" had become corrupted into "Cedeleshunte". The Domesday Book also makes it clear that Chadshunt was at that time under the ownership of Coventry Monastery; indeed, Earl Leofric of Mercia had recently gifted Chadshunt to this monastery, along with twenty-three other settlements that were under his control. According to the first volume of Camden's Britannia, which was translated into English and expanded by Edmund Gibson in 1722, Leofric's charter calls it "Chaddeſleyhunt"; of course, as the exact spelling of the Domesday Book's name for Chadshunt is given incorrectly in Camden's work, this may not be completely trustworthy. Although the place-name from 949 suggests that there was already some sort of shrine of St Chad in the area by the 10th century, it is probable that Coventry Monastery would have either improved or embellished the settlement's facilities for pilgrims. In either 1278 or 1279, according to the aforementioned Rev. George Miller, ownership of Chadshunt passed to the Bishop of Chester, whose diocese then included both Coventry and Lichfield, the latter being the centre of St Chad's medieval cult, and the location of his shrine.

It is said that Chadshunt's parish church, now known as "All Saints' Church" but originally dedicated to St Chad, once received large numbers of medieval pilgrims. Camden's Britannia refers to the existence of "an ancient Oratory", situated in "the Chapelyard", that was reputed to have housed an "Image of St. Chadde"; although it is not clear where exactly this was located in the churchyard, it may have had something to do with the large stone cross, only the base of which now remains, that once stood in the churchyard. Indeed, a notice in the church that I saw on my visit claimed, without obvious grounds, that the image was actually attached to this cross. Either way, it is probable that this chapel was either constructed by Coventry Monastery, or by the Bishop of Chester, perhaps replacing an earlier structure of some kind. This chapel certainly had a direct link to the well, with the Rev. George Miller suggesting that pilgrims would pay their devotions at the shrine in the churchyard before walking to the well, probably using it for healing purposes.

Although the "oratory" managed to survive the Reformation intact, it was, unsurprisingly, targeted during the reign of Elizabeth I. It appears that the chapel was destroyed during her fourth year as queen (1561-2), at which time the priest's annual earnings were valued at £16, which is equivalent to roughly £4,000 today. Only the well escaped destruction, although it is likely that any medieval structure that it possessed was destroyed at this time.

Over the next few centuries, the site seems to have been mostly forgotten. The spring was clearly converted into some sort of neo-classical folly during either the 18th or 19th centuries, and embellished by a carved stone head, representing either a fish or a mythical human head with fins. If the Victoria County History account of Chadshunt's history, published in 1949, is to be believed, then a "statue of St. Chad" that was "of no great antiquity" once surmounted the feature. When I visited the site in the June of 2025, what remained of this folly was evidently in need of some maintenance, as was the circular stone wall that surrounded the well, which was leaning precariously in some areas and had completely collapsed in others. The carved head, through the mouth of which water from the spring issues, was still intact, although its features were completely obscured by moss, and the structure behind it, built of unmortared stones, was sporting several large gaps. The plasterwork behind two structures vaguely resembling rockpools, on the eastern side of the rectangular basin, was peeling away, revealing a row of bricks that appeared to be of the 19th century; this is most probably the age of the structure. Nonetheless, the spring itself was producing a large quantity of water, and there is still local knowledge of its existence, as the owner of the site informed me that the well is locally said to have been the place where St Chad first "set up shop" in Chadshunt when he arrived here in the 7th century.

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