Holy Well at Binsey
...in Goudge's Oxford novel, Towers in the Mist
“Faithful and Grace went on their way. It was a perfect summer's day and between banks of meadowsweet and willow herb and green rushes the river ran through fields of shimmering grass… Over their heads was the blue sky of late summer, mirrored in the rippling water, and across the river to their right the glorious stretch of Port Meadow, the "town" meadow that had been given to the city of Oxford to graze its cattle on for all time. It was so wide and so flat that it was like a green sea, and reflected the high white clouds that sailed above it in drifting pools of deeper green. Black-winged swallows dipped and rose and dipped again beside the river, and it seemed to Faithful that plumb upon the center of every reflected white cloud in the blue water there sat a fat white swan. "There is no place in the world so beautiful as this," he said to Grace, "no place in all the world."
Leaving the river behind them they turned to their left and went across the meadow that led to Binsey. When they got to the tiny village they turned to their right and followed the rough stony path that led to the church and the Holy Well… A feeling of awe crept over them as they came into the churchyard and stood together on the path that led to the old gray church.”
Elizabeth Goudge, Towers in the Mist
Binsey pilgrimage
This week as we come to the end of Towers in the Mist, we will talk about the last hundred pages. I have added the link for the live book discussion at the end of this post - hope you can join us on Wednesday at 3pm EST! I will post another discussion on Wednesday, and then add a short synopsis video about the end of the book. Then I will introduce the beginning of God So Loved the World on Friday for March 1st! So it’s a busy week around here, and I hope you can join as when you have time.
Today I would like to take you on a quiet walk around the little village that Faithful and Grace visit for the water from the holy well. Binsey is to the northwest of Oxford and about a 2 mile walk.
St. Margaret’s of Antioch Church in Binsey
St Margaret’s of Antioch Church is another half miles past Binsey village. Set quite out of the way, it is a quiet and peaceful retreat. Here is a touching review by Kevin Mills on Google maps:
“I absolutely love this place. It’s tucked away in the middle of nowhere, accessible by foot down a lane or you can park on the side of the lane but space is limited. I first came across this church when my wife was diagnosed with cancer. It offered me peace and space to order my thoughts. Through her illness and later passing I have visited many times , and although not religious this simple church has lifted my spirits. You won't find anything fancy stain glass here though outside stands St Margaret's Well, which is the model for Lewis carrolls ‘Treacle Well’ from Alice in wonderland this is a holy well dedicated to St Frideswide.”
Britain Express says of Binsey:
“Binsey is a small hamlet on the west bank of the River Thames, immediately east of Oxford. Down a quiet rural lane north of the village centre stands the 12th-century church of St Margaret, built on the site of a Saxon church linked to St Frideswide, the patron saint of Oxford, who established an oratory here in the early 8th century.”
St Frideswide
Goudge seems to like these stories about women who run away to hide from marriage and instead take the veil. Ely Cathedral, which is the setting for The Dean’s Watch, was founded by St Etheldreda and Goudge includes a bit of her story. (If you missed it, here is a post about St Etheldreda from our November Goudge Readalong.)
Here is a bit more historical info about the founder of Oxford, St Frideswide:
“Frideswide was the daughter of a Christian nobleman and is thought to have been born around AD 680. A Mercian prince named Algar wanted to marry Frideswide, but she rejected his advances and fled. She hid for three years at Binsey, where she worked as a swineherd while Algar searched for her in vain.”1
“In later art, she is depicted holding the pastoral staff of an abbess with a fountain springing up near her and an ox at her feet.”2
The literary references to St Frideswide from the Museum of Oxford:
“St Frideswide persists as a legendary figure in Oxford more than 1200 years on. She was invoked in Chaucer’s The Miller’s Tale and her miraculous ’Treacle Well’ also makes an appearance in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”
St Margaret’s Well
Interesting history for St Margaret’s well from Anne Arnott:
Behind St Margaret's Church is St Margaret's Well
According to legend, she fled to Binsey in a bid to escape marriage to a king of Mercia, whose pursuit of her was halted when he was struck blind at the gates of Oxford. Frideswide’s prayers brought forth a healing spring, whose waters cured his blindness, and the spring was walled into a shallow well which became a focus for pilgrimage, the mediaeval sense of the word ‘treacle’ meaning ‘healing unguent’. The well became a pilgrimage site in mediaeval times known as "The Treacle Well".
Treacle was an old English word for medicine, and was also used to describe dark coloured undrinkable water, which was associated with the taste of medicine. So a well where the water became undrinkable would be termed a “treacle well”.
The Latin inscription on well reads:
S. MARGARETAE FONTEM
PRECIBUS S. FRIDESWIDAE UT FERTUR CONCESSUM
INQUINATUM DIE OBRUTUMQUE
IN USUM REVOCAVIT
T. J. PROUT AED. XTI ALUMNUS VICARIUS
A.S. MDCCCLXXIV.
Partial Translation:
St. Margaret's Fountain
GRANTED OF THE PRAYERS OF S. FRIDESWIDA“Nature was taking back again the holy place that once belonged to man. Bit by bit her sea was lapping up, covering man’s brown paths and gray stones with a slowly encroaching tide of green.”
🌱Elizabeth Goudge, Towers in the Mist
Nature taking back the holy place
I really enjoyed Goudge’s description of the natural world in this chapter. She says it is taking back over from the paths that had been trodden by hundreds of feet, but now lie quiet. In the days of plague that would suddenly sweep over Europe, nature was always waiting to come in, as she says. Here is the whole passage:
“The days of pilgrimage to the Holy Well were now over and thick green moss had grown over the path that once had been kept bare and hard with the passing of feet. The grass had grown high, hiding the tombs of the dead, and the trees had grown thickly and darkly about the weather-stained walls and lichened roof of the church. Nature was taking back again the holy place that once had belonged to man. Bit by bit her sea was lapping up, covering man's brown paths with a slowly encroaching tide of green. Faithful marveled the inexorable patience of nature. Let man attack her, cutting down her trees to make room for the smoke-grimed walls of his houses, rooting up her flowers to make space for his teeming streets, putting her birds to flight and sending her furry creatures scurrying away into exile, and she patiently withdraws herself to the horizon, gathering her creatures to her, brooding and biding her time. But let man loosen his grip for a moment, let him leave his house or neglect the paving of his street, and she is back again with seeds blown in the wind and the germ of growth alive in the sun and the rain. Her touch is that of Midas and the mark of her possessive finger is seen in a yellow wall flower upon the wall, and the print of her returning feet in dandelions among the cobbles. They are forerunners of the returning tide, those specks of gold, and if man does not fight her in a few centuries green waves of meadow and forest will have swept over his houses and streets and only a few hummocks in the grass will show where his city has been.”
🌱Elizabeth Goudge, Towers in the Mist
How did you like the chapter about Binsey? Love to hear!
Join us for a Zoom Book discussion about Towers in the Mist on Wednesday February 28th at 3pm EST. Link below:
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