Hollinshead Wellhouse, Tockholes/Belmont

Start of a seven-mile pilgrim walk to Blackburn Cathedral

‍Highlights

• Mysterious ritual well building

This might be a secret holy well, built in the face of persecution by a recusant Catholic family. Or it might be a farm shed. No one knows why it was built, or even when. It has been dated to between the 16th and 18th centuries.

Hollinshead Hall is a once-mighty country house now reduced to an overgrown ruin. Some say this place is haunted, others consider it merely atmospheric. The wellhouse is the only complete building to survive on this estate, tucked under a tree at the foot of a hill.

Most visitors come to puzzle over the well, but unfortunately the little stone building is locked, with bars on the window. You can at least peer inside and form your own opinion. It does look as if it were designed for a ritual purpose. Stone benches line either side, and at the back water emerges below a stone lion’s head before gathering into two pools. It then flows in a channel along the middle of the floor.

It is linked to the local Radcliffe family, who were Catholics. Some suggest they built the room as a baptistery, or possibly even a secret chapel for conducting mass. However, the design is most similar to the Dupath Well House in Cornwall, which is clearly designed for ritual bathing in healing water.

A well-dressing ceremony was conducted at the well in 1988 by the local Anglican vicar. The source of the water arises on a bank immediately behind the wellhouse, gathering in a shallow oval pool that you can reach into. The hall was abandoned in the 19th century and its stone used as building material. It is a secluded place, only accessible by foot.

Directions‍

Path starts at: Piccadilly Farm, Belmont Road/A675, Belmont, Chorley PR6 8DZ‍

W3W: nails.incoming.lends

GPS: 53.6747N 2.5105W

Leave the M65 at junction 3 and take the A675 south towards Bolton. After 3.3 miles you pass a welcome sign to Blackburn, Darwent and Belmont. 500 yards after that is a long stone house on the left. Park in the narrow lay-by just after the house, and follow the signed footpath from the lay-by. Where the track ends after 300m turn right into the ruins, and a sign indicates the layout of the estate and the wellhouse.