Menacuddle

Menacuddle Well is a small granite well house built over a spring in a wooded valley on the northern edge of St Austell, Cornwall. It has been a scheduled ancient monument since 22 March 1932 and is also a Grade II* listed building. Historic England dates it to the late 15th century; the party from the Royal Institution of Cornwall who were shown round in 1875 were told it looked like the Late Decorated period, a century earlier. What the name means has never been settled, and at least five readings have reached print since 1824, from the belly or basin in the rock to the hawk's stone. The oldest datable account of the place, in the History of Cornwall of 1824, describes a healing spring where weak children were bathed and ulcers washed, and a custom of throwing a crooked pin into the water for good luck through life, with the old pins said to rise from the bottom to meet it. The same page adds that nobody had ever seen it happen. The reputation of the surrounding wood for a large black animal rests on one named witness, a Cornwall councillor, warning a town council meeting in July 2015.

Menacuddle Well stands in a wooded valley on the northern side of St Austell, in the Cornish parish of Treverbyn. Historic England first scheduled it on 22 March 1932 and amended the entry on 7 June 2000. The official list entry, NHLE 1019163, describes "a small granite building over a well basin", orientated east-west with the east wall built against the natural rock face, "constructed of large granite blocks and mortar, while the roof is also of large granite slabs supported on three massive ribs". It measures 2.3 m high by 2.74 m wide and 3.45 m long, with a pointed arched entrance in each of the north and south walls and a small rounded arched window in the west. The same entry records that the well house "is a Listed Building Grade II*" as well as a scheduled monument. What the name means has never been settled, and the charity that now looks after the site says so in as many words: "Many local historians have attempted to decipher the meaning of this place-name but lack of records leaves it to conjecture." At least five readings have reached print. John Whitaker, quoted in the History of Cornwall of 1824, took the place to be "denominated Menacuddle in writing, or Menakettle in pronunciation; a Cornish appellation, that signifies merely the belly or basin in the rock". R. C. Hope printed "maen-a-coidl, the hawk's stone" in 1893. The Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall proposed in 1902 a derivation from Meen and Cuddigle, the cell or retreat of Meen. A. L. Rowse read it as the stone or rock wall. The version now repeated online, from Old Cornish mened and cuydel, hillside with a small wood, is credited by Wikipedia to page 122 of Craig Weatherhill's Placenames in Cornwall and Scilly (2005), a book not consulted here. It is the youngest of the five. The medieval fabric is better attested than the name. M. and L. Quiller-Couch, working up their late father's notes for Ancient and Holy Wells of Cornwall in 1894, recorded that "At Menacuddle, and in the near neighbourhood of the well, was once a free chapel, subject to the Priory of Tywardreath", identified with the "free chapel of Benecuddle" in Dr Oliver's abridgment of the certificates of chantries, and founded by the ancestors of Peryse, the family later established at Penrice. Historic England dates the well house to "the late 15th century". The members of the Royal Institution of Cornwall who were shown round in 1875 were told something else: "Menacuddle Well or Baptistry, as it is sometimes called, is a low, rude granite structure with a ribbed roof, built over a natural spring of pure water. It appears to date from somewhere about the Late Decorated period." That would put it a century earlier. The oldest datable description of what people did there is in the first volume of Fortescue Hitchins and Samuel Drew's History of Cornwall, published in 1824, at pages 633 and 634. Drew, whom the Quiller-Couches call "a native of St. Austell", wrote that "Weak children have frequently been carried thither to be bathed; ulcers have also been washed in its sacred water; and people in seasons of sickness have been recommended by the neighbouring matrons to drink of this salubrious fluid", the benefit being credited "rather from some mystical virtue attributed to the water for ages past, than from its natural qualities". Then the pins: "On approaching the margin, each visitor, if he hoped for good luck through life, was expected to throw a crooked pin into the water; and it was presumed that the other pins which had been deposited there by former devotees, might be seen rising from their beds to meet it before it reached the bottom." The garden around the well is the work of Charles Rashleigh, the developer of Charlestown harbour. After his bankruptcy and death in 1823 the estate was bought by the Sawles of Penrice and the pleasure grounds leased to the Martin family, and it was a Martin who guided the 1875 excursion. Quiller-Couch found the well in 1894 "on the ornamental grounds of Mr. Martin, near St. Austell town", and found local usage divided between two names, since "Menacuddle estate is on one hill and Trethowel on the opposite, the well being in the valley between". The road that now runs above the well arrived with the Bodmin and Roche Turnpike Trust of 1836, terraced into the granite of the hillside; before that the way into the town ran along the valley floor, past the well itself. The memorial the well carries has a name behind it. Lieutenant Richard Charles Graves-Sawle of the 2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards was, in the words of The Bond of Sacrifice, "the only son of Rear-Admiral Sir Charles Graves-Sawle, Bart., M.V.O., and Lady Graves-Sawle, of Penrice, Cornwall, and Barley, Exeter". His marriage to Muriel Heaton-Ellis "had been arranged to take place in October" and, "owing to the outbreak of war", took place instead on 6 August 1914. He sailed for France on 12 August, fought through the retirement from Mons, and was "killed at Ypres on the 2nd November, 1914", at twenty-six. In 1921 his father gave the baptistry and the grounds around it to the Parochial Church Council of Holy Trinity, St Austell; Historic England records that the well "was restored in 1922 as a memorial to a member of the Sawle family, owners of the Menacuddle Estate, who died in World War I". The ground passed from the church council to St Austell Rural District, then Restormel Borough, and is now owned by Cornwall Council.

Menacuddle Well stands beside Bodmin Road on the northern edge of St Austell, in the parish of Treverbyn. OpenStreetMap gives the postcode as PL25 5AG and places the well house at 50.34557, -4.79566; the scheduling entry gives the national grid reference SX 01187 53253, which converts to a point 2 m away. Drew in 1824 put it "About half a mile from St. Austell", and Whitaker, quoted in the same volume, "a quarter of a mile to the north of the town". Historic England places it "in an ornamental garden in a valley running north from St Austell", which is worth stating plainly, because directions putting the well on the south side of the town have circulated, this file included. The ground belongs to Cornwall Council. There is no gate and no charge, the site has neither a car park nor a visitor centre, and the well house is reached on foot down a short path from the road; the list entry notes that "the modern surface of the gravel footpath to the north, south and west of the well is excluded from the scheduling, where it falls within the monument's 2m protective margin". The walk up the valley from the town centre is closed: the Friends of Menacuddle state that the lower part of the valley "is owned by St Austell Brewery and is not currently open to the public but hopes are that ultimately the full walk from town will be restored". The Friends, a community charity formed in 2016, run open working days on the site: "We hold a 'Welly Day' on the second Sunday of every month, 2:00pm to 4:00pm to work on the site and we are always pleased to welcome volunteers." Their website was read on 7 September 2026; the most recent entry on its news page is a Wellie Day report from March 2020, and the site carries a contact page. The well house is protected twice over, as a scheduled monument and, in the words of the list entry, as "a Listed Building Grade II*". Damaging a scheduled monument is an offence under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979. The Friends describe replacing concrete mortar on the walls and roof with lime and sand on Historic England's advice, sealing the iron window bar against rust and renewing the fixings of the information plaque. BBC Cornwall described the place in July 2009 as "a little known beauty spot which houses the historic Menacuddle Well, surrounded by trees and rhododendron bushes"; that page has since been archived and carries the line "last updated: 29/07/2009". The photograph on this file was taken by Michael Murray and captioned, on Geograph, "This is in a beautiful secluded place next to a main road,very quiet and peaceful".