St John's Well: nymphs, monks and washerwomen

Near here was St John's Well, where Berkhamsted folk once danced for the water nymphs by moonlight, until a bishop put a stop to it.

St John's Well in Berkhamsted is unusual because its pagan past is actually recorded. In the twelfth century, it is said, Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, came to stop local people worshipping nymphs and sprites there by dressing the spring with flowers and dancing round it on moonlit nights. A monk then dreamed he should bless the spring, and it was rededicated to St John the Evangelist as a healing well, with a shrine, a hospice and a small community of monks. Its water was thought to cure scrofula and leprosy, and clothes washed in it were thought to keep you healthy, so in 1400 washerwomen were prosecuted for polluting it.