St Anthony's Well (Edinburgh) Holy Well or Sacred Spring : The Megalithic Portal and Megalith Map:

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Submitted by feorag on Friday, 11 August 2006 Page Views: 20616

Springs and Holy WellsSite Name: St Anthony's Well (Edinburgh)
Country: Scotland
NOTE: This site is 0.154 km away from the location you searched for.
County: Midlothian Type: Holy Well or Sacred Spring
Nearest Town: Edinburgh
Map Ref: NT27527364
Latitude: 55.950303N Longitude: 3.162221W
Condition:

5	Perfect
4	Almost Perfect
3	Reasonable but with some damage
2	Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1	Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0	No data.
-1	Completely destroyed

4 Ambience:

5	Superb
4	Good
3	Ordinary
2	Not Good
1	Awful
0	No data.

4 Access:

5	Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4	Short walk on a footpath
3	Requiring a bit more of a walk
2	A long walk
1	In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0	No data.

5 Accuracy:

5	co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4	co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3	co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2	co-ordinates of the nearest village
1	co-ordinates of the nearest town
0	no data

5

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lichen visited on 6th Jan 2023 - their rating: Cond: 2 Amb: 3 Access: 5

Anne T visited on 20th Feb 2017 - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 3 Access: 4 St Anthony's Well, Holyrood, Edinburgh: Located some 400 metres east south east from St. Margaret’s Well, the paths lead up the hill away from Arthur’s Seat, up to St. Anthony’s Chapel. Where the paths going up the hill divide (the left hand fork leading to the cave and chapel, the right continuing up the hill), there appears to be a large boulder about 100 yards up the right hand path. This is actually the well. From the base of the boulder a lead pipe protrudes into a stone basin. There was no water flowing. Again heavily graffitied and littered; the friend I was with described it as a 'Neolithic toilet'!

DJCM visited on 30th Dec 2014 - their rating: Cond: 4 Amb: 5 Access: 4 A quick sunset hike up Arthur's Seat, taking in St. Anthony's Well and Chapel first.

schwagmyre have visited here

Average ratings for this site from all visit loggers: Condition: 3 Ambience: 3.67 Access: 4.33

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**St. Anthony's Well (Edinburgh)** submitted by feorag : St. Anthony's Well, Holyrood Park, Edinburgh. Photographed 16th March 2003. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Holy Well or Sacred Spring in Midlothian.
The well is near the ruins of St. Anthony’s Chapel, said to have been built because of the well, on the main route up to Arthur’s Seat.

The water used to come out from under a boulder, but has not flowed since the 1950s. The spring has moved in the past, originally flowing from under an arch at the chapel itself but dried up in the seventeenth century and re-emerged at the present position. Presumably it's now moved again.

A May Day tradition is to wash one’s face in the dew on Arthur’s Seat, then make a wish at the well. More complex traditions have been observed. In the late 19th century, J.R. Walker reported a healing ritual he'd witnessed to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland:

"While walking in the Queen’s Park about sunset, I casually passed St. Anthony’s Well, and had my attention attracted by the number of people about it, all simply quenching their thirst, some probably with a dim idea that they would reap some benefit from the draught. Standing a little apart, however, and evidently patiently waiting a favourable moment to present itself for their purpose, was a group of four. Feeling somewhat curious as to their intention I quietly kept myself in the background, and by-and-by was rewarded. The crowd departed and the group came forward, consisting of two old women, a younger woman of about thirty, and a pale, sickly-looking girl--a child three or four years old. Producing cups from their pockets, the old woman dipped them in the pool, filled them, and drank the contents. A full cup was then presented to the younger woman and another to the child. Then one of the old women produced a long linen bandage, dipped it in the water, wrung it, dipped it in again, and then wound it round the child's head, covering the eyes, the youngest woman, evidently the mother of the child, carefully observing the operation and weeping gently all the time. The other old woman not engaged in this work was carefully filling a clear glass bottle with the water, evidently for future use. Then, after the principal operators had looked at each other with an earnest and half solemn sort of look, the party wended its way down the hill."

For more information see Canmore ID 52448 and The Northern Antiquarian's entry for St. Anthony’s Well, Edinburgh, Midlothian. TNA includes directions for finding this well, together with an image of the 1853 OS map showing the location of the well, an old drawing or the well and the nearby chapel, a description and local folklore, which includes sun-lore and Beltane rights.

This stone above the well is featured on the Ancient Stones: A Guide to Standing Stones and Stone Circles in the South of Scotland - see their entry for Stone, St. Anthony's Well, Edinburgh, which includes a description, directions for finding the stone with nearby parking, folklore and fieldnotes. The Ancient Stones adds: "It's not St. Anthony's Well itself that is of interest here but rather the massive capping stone located above and behind the carved stone basin that forms the outflow from the well. This recumbent stone measures 2.20m long x 1.50m wide x approx. 0.50m in height and is raised above the well by some stonework which is just visible under the stone."
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