Pilgrim Ways

Desecrated statues can be replaced but, tragically, real life cannot be. In the upheavals which followed the Civil War there was another wave of persecution, costing one Holywell priest, Fr.John Plessington, his life. He was executed on the gallows at Chester.

In 1686 James II and Queen Mary of Modena came to pray at the chapel in the hope of a son.

Although their prayer was answered - and the Queen clarified the ownership of the Chapel by formally giving it to the Jesuit priest Fr.Thomas Roberts - the birth of a son triggered the landing at Torbay, on November 5th 1688, of William of Orange. In Holywell it led to a crowd breaking into the Star Inn, evicting Fr.Roberts, and to the public burning of books and a cross in the market place.

Still pilgrims came, provoking Bishop Fleetwood of St.Asaph to complain that pilgrims were arriving from all parts of Britain and Ireland: “the enemy we have to deal with grows more numerous, is active, vigilant and daring, daily pushes on its conquests, is in good heart and under no discouragement but that of laws...”. Even those laws, which barred Catholics from the professions, from the right to vote, or to inherit or purchase land, could not destroy the old faith. Nor did the public humiliations. The Jesuit superior at Holywell, Fr.Thorold, and a lay brother, William Christopher, were stripped in mid-winter and thrown into prison for the better part of a year.

After a protracted and painful battle for possession, Catholics were prohibited from using the chapel and in 1723 it was converted into use as a school room. This simply led to pilgrims hearing Mass privately in the town‟s inns, and records show that there was always a priest at Holywell throughout the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, and there were always more and more pilgrims.

In 1808 the long night finally ended when Flintshire‟s Clerk of the Peace agreed that Mass could be said publicly at the Star Inn. The inn is now part of St.Winifrid‟s Presbytery and remained in use until part of the present church was built in 1832. In 1859 the Sisters of Charity created a convent in Loyola cottages and St.Winifrid‟s Convent was built on the site of the Cross Keys. In place of Basingwerk, friars and nuns had moved into Pantasaph around the same time, and the Jesuits to St.Beuno‟s. In 1870 a new hospice for pilgrims was opened and in 1873 the Jesuits obtained a lease on the well from the Town Council. In the 1890s an 11.30 am daily service was initiated at the Well, beginning when the pilgrimage season begins, at Pentecost, and ending on the last day of September. It has continued ever since.

Other Welsh Wells Elsewhere in Wales there are many other examples of holy wells. One, used for baptism, is the well of Llanfyllin in Powys: St.Myllin‟s Well is set on a hillside overlooking the town.

St.Myllin was said to have carried out baptisms here in the sixth century. Francis Jones‟ The Holy Wells of Wales (University of Wales Press, 1992) is the ideal hand-book for anyone wishing to discover the holy wells of the Principality. It includes a full list of the Welsh wells and where to find them. Some of those which are listed include St.Seriol‟s Well, at Penmon on Ynis Mon, the island of Anglesey. Close by are a monastic cell and a hermits‟s cave. From the well the pilgrim can see Puffin island which is where St.Seriol, a local holy man and preacher, is buried.

At Colwyn Bay, in Conwy, a beautiful chapel, probably of twelfth-century origin, is constructed over the well of St.Trillo, a well which rises below the altar. St.Trillo is a sixth