The Sacred Waters

Wherever you find a sacred well or mention of a well in a place name, it indicates the existence of ancient well worship. Throughout the millennia wells have primarily been dedicated and rededicated to different Goddesses of healing and fertility and tended by female guardians.

Sometimes with creative inspiration you can contact the essences of well priestesses in the Celtic tradition in even the most neglected urban well shaft or pipe that may be the only sign that the sacred waters still flow. But occasionally archaeologists and historians have pieced together archaeological evidence to shed light on those who came to seek healing and fertility –and those who tended them in an unbroken tradition.

The Isle of Sheppey in Kent where Water, Sky and Earth converge is perhaps best known for the heavy industrialisation of the surrounding River Thames or the caravan and chalet sites that provide a haven for Londoners. But local historian, author and archaeologist Brian Slade has pieced together the story of the sacred wells of Sheppey and the ancient abbey, Monasterium Sexburgha and in doing so has come across evidence of the Druidesses who once tended the sacred waters.

Other historians share his view that Sheppey may have been the last remote stronghold of the old Druidical rites in England.

Excavations and investigations ,carried out by Mr Slade’s archaeological team over a period of ten years revealed that the Anglo Saxon St Sexburga chapel, more than one thousand three hundred years old, stands in the centre of a former druidic (and pre-druidic) place of worship. The Druidic site is marked what is called The Minster triangle, formed by a trinity of extremely ancient healing wells.

Down all three wells, the archaeological team discovered artefacts that provided evidence of a triple headed Celtic or even pre Celtic fertility goddess worship. Most significant was the discovery of a three-headed metal cast, depicting a heavily pregnant goddess squatting in the ancient position of giving birth in what is now called The Well of the Triple Goddess. From similar broken beeswax images of the same goddess, also found in the well shaft, it seems that women once broke these beeswax images into pieces and dropped them in the well as a private offering to the Goddess for fertility. Local evidence speaks of an indigenous ancient Goddess called Brid or Bridget in Kent and of her later cross pollination with Ireland’s St Bridget,

The incoming Saxons, the Abbess Sexburga and her nuns, said Brian Slade, would have inherited and absorbed the local tradition of the strong fertility associations of the well waters.

Dr Thirsk another archaeologist historian pointed out in 1987 how in Kent there is a high concentration of churches dedicated to female saints and how they are often associated with reputed holy wells and springs in the area. This may signify the Christianisation of pagan shrines dedicated to a widespread Celtic/ pre Celtic water goddess cult in Kentt

Mr Slade noted that the ancient references to Sexburga, Abbess of Minster Abbey, indicated that like the Triple Goddess Brighid and the later saint Bridget, she was also one of three sisters, all of whom became saints and so she was the ideal candidate to take over the healing/fertility wells and Celtic triple Goddess worship. Sexburga likewise became famed for her healing powers and healing wells; the wells continued to be a focus site of pilgrimage, especially for barren women throughout Christian times.

When in 640-664 AD St Sexburga adopted the Minster site, a number of her nuns, especially those drawn from the local region (absorbed, perhaps, from a local priestess tradition) may have been secret Druidesses and in essence practical religious changes under Sexburga to the former pagan well reverence were probably few.

The most famous of the three wells excavated by Brian Slade's team is Sexburgha's/the Triple Goddess Well within the old abbey grounds. Since 1990 when the fertility image first was found in its waters, it has been credited with helping the birth of more than more than twenty babies, born to couples who were having difficulty conceiving or women who could not carry an infant to full term.

In the first, and most remarkable case, when the well was first excavated in 1990/1991 archaeologist Ian touched the fertility symbol while waist-deep in mud, without realising its significance. Sharon, his wife who previously been unable to carry a baby to full-term, gave birth to a daughter Emily in June, 1991 exactly nine months later She and Ian went on to have another healthy daughter.

Though Sexburgha and her abbey are long gone, the Goddess/Druidess links have remained. On a column, at the present Minster Abbey, built on the site of Sexburgha's old abbey and its grounds, is an image of a goddess with three wheat stalks, a fertility symbol. What is more the ‘S’ of the saint’s name appears in a triangular stone above the Priest's Door in the Sexburgha chapel, entwined with the image of pagan fertility god, the Green Man. The Green Man stands on a direct pathway/ley line between two of the wells..