king of the East Angles,
who died A.D. 654.
The abbot and monks of Ely
stole this precious relique
and translated it to Ely Cathedral,
where it was interred near her three royal sisters,
A.D. 974."
The sexton informed me that the abbot and monks of Ely made this bath, or well, to recompense the good people of Dereham for the loss they had sustained by the removal of the bones. It is yet used as a bath, both by residents and strangers, the supply of water being very plentiful, and delightfully clear. The water rises under an arch of the Early English, or Early Decorated period. I shall be glad of any notes upon this, or similar baths, in any other churchyards.
W. SPARROW SIMPSON, B.A.
[This bath appears to have been formerly used as a baptistery, which in the early British churches was erected outside of the western entrance, where it continued until the sixth century, if not later (Bingham, book viii. c. vii.). Blomefield, in his History of Norfolk, vol. v. p. 1190. fol. 1775., has the following notices of this building: "At the west end of the churchyard are the ruins of a very ancient baptistery, over which was formerly a small chapel, dedicated to St. Withburga. At the east end of the baptistery there is now remaining a curious old Gothic arch, from which runs a spring of clear water, formerly said to have had many medicinal and healing qualities. The fabulous account is, that this spring took its rise in the churchyard from the place where St. Withburga was first buried. In the year 1752 it was arched over, and converted into a cold bath." In the notices of the early churches of Cornwall, Wales, and Ireland, frequent mention is made of these baptisteries or holy wells, which we do not remember to have seen fully discussed in any work, and of which some account would be interesting alike to the divine, the topographer, and the antiquary. The learned Leland, in his Itinerary, iii. 30., in a description of Falmouth harbour, says, "there is a praty village or fishar town with a pere, cawlid S. Maws [Machutus], and there is a chapelle of hym, and his chaire of stone, and his welle." Again, speaking of the church of St. Germochus in Cornwall, he says, "it is three miles from S. Michael's Mont by est south est, and a mile from the se; his tomb is yet seene ther. S. Germoke ther buried. S. Germoke's chair in the chirch-yard. S. Germoke's welle a little without the chirch-yard." (Itin. iii. 16.) Some further notices of these holy wells will be found in The Chronicles of the Ancient British Church, pp. 136-140.]