Crochan Caffo, Llangaffo

Dedication: Saint Caffo

Location: Crochan Caffo Farm

Status: destroyed?

Saint Caffo was both a disciple and cousin of the famous St Cybi, a 6th century Cornish saint whose name appears across Wales. Caffo is said to have been the brother of the famous St Gildas, the so-called "first British historian"; his story only appears in one of the Latin lives of St Cybi, and there are no certain facts about his life. St Cybi is said to have estranged himself from Caffo after St Gildas published a scathing account of King Maelgwn of Gwynedd, whose land Cybi and his followers were staying on; Cybi probably dismissed Caffo on the orders of Maelgwn. Alone and without the protection of St Cybi, Caffo was murdered by several shepherds at a place that is said to have become known as "Merthyr Caffo", modern-day Llangaffo, where the saint's cult clearly prevailed locally.

Although many holy wells on Anglesey are associated with strange medieval traditions, one of the most unusual rituals of them all was performed at Crochan Caffo. As opposed to possessing healing powers, this well was credited with the power of preventing young children from crying; for this to be successfully achieved, a cockerel would be sacrificed to St Caffo at the well. However, old accounts stress that the ritual would not work if the sacrifice was not afterwards eaten by the priest.

The earliest reference that I have found to the existence of Crochan Caffo (which translates directly as "Caffo's Cauldron") dates from the early 18th century. The well was one of the boundary markers of the parish, and its name appeared in a description of the parish boundary in a manuscript entitled Antiquitates Parochiales that was written by Henry Rowlands in 1710. This manuscript was transcribed and published, along with a translation of it, in 1874 by the Cambrian Archaeological Association:

Limites hujus villæ percursi sunt, primo a Rhyd Ddinam per communem viam ad Cae'r Slatter; exinde ad Crochan Caffo; abhinc ad paludem de Malldraeth, et circumeundo per mediam paludem pergitur ad viam communiter dictam, y Lôn goed; per illam viam ad Hen-siop; exinde per viam regiam ad Penyrorsedd; exinde per viam ducentem ad Sarn Dudur; exinde, per rivulum prope Bodowyr defluentem, ad Rhyd Ddinam.

Translation: The boundaries of this township extend first, from Rhyd Ddinam by the common road to Cae'r Slatter; thence to Crochan Caffo; thence, to the Malldraeth Marsh, and by a circuit through the middle of the marsh (the boundary,) goes to the road commonly called y Lôn goed; by the road to Hen Siop; thence, by the high road to Penyrorsedd; thence, by the road leading to Sarn Dudur; and thence, by the rivulet running near Bodowyr, to Rhyd Ddinam.

It is not clear whether the ritual was still practised at the well after the Reformation, although in all likelihood it was. By 1833, the well's existence was still known of, but it does not seem to have had any local importance: in that year, Angharad Llwyd, in A History of the Island of Mona, mentioned the ritual, but implied that it had not been performed at the well for a long time.

According to the Archwilio database, Crochan Caffo was destroyed by the construction of the railway in 1841. Indeed, the railway does run straight past the farm that, to this day, retains the name of the well, and Sabine Baring-Gould stated in 1908 that "the well has now disappeared". However, I cannot find any solid evidence that the well was certainly destroyed by the construction of the railway, and there are several surviving springs in the vicinity of Crochan Caffo farm, any of which could have been the well. The Royal Commission did not visit the site, and it, or the site of it, has never been named on Ordnance Survey maps, so there can be no certainty that the well actually was destroyed by the railway at all. Perhaps, instead, its location was simply forgotten after it fell out of use.