St Julitta's Well and St Julitta's Church, Lanteglos, Camelford

Celtic pilgrimage rarely encounters such colourful folk tales as those woven into the life of St Julitta, her peaceful holy well now visited by the King Arthur Way

Highlights

• Holy well of St Julitta

St Julitta’s Well is of humble proportions, hidden under trees at the bottom of a steep field. Small though it may be, the story about its miraculous appearance is anything but. It is a colourful tale of saintly purity, a wicked stepmother and some hidden dairy produce: a typical day in the early Celtic church.

The well sits near a peaceful riverbank below the St Juliot’s Well Holiday Park, easily accessible if you know where to look. The church at Lanteglos, a mile to the west, is also involved in the legend of how this holy well appeared. There is some doubt, as ever in Cornwall, about the identification of St Julitta. The Oxford Dictionary of Saints says she might have been St Juthwara, in which case the church and holy well have the following 14th-century legend attached. St Juthwara was a kindly young woman, hated for her piety by a wicked stepmother. The older woman spread false rumours that the unmarried St Juthwara was pregnant. Her brother, incensed at his sister’s shame, confronted her and noticed milk leaking out of her blouse.

The scheming step-mother had persuaded St Juthwara to put two cheeses over her breasts, to ease a chest pain. It was these that gave the impression she was lactating. Her brother cut her head off. Where it fell, a holy spring appeared and a massive oak tree began to grow. St Juthwara’s body gathered up her head, carried it to the church and placed it on the altar. She then finally died.

Lanteglos Church is half a mile from the holy well along the river valley, and is also dedicated to St Julitta. Some claim that the Julitta in question was simply an early missionary active around the Tintagel area. Although the earliest fabric of the church is Norman there are Celtic crosses in the churchyard, the monuments of Cornwall as ever proving more solid than their elusive saints.

St Juthwara’s relics were later installed at Sherborne Abbey, in a shrine that was destroyed at the Reformation. She is one of the first female martyrs of Britain, assuming she lived in the 6th century, which makes the lack of accurate information all the more frustrating. Other places are also claimed as the scene of her death, such as Halstock in Dorset. It has a lovely little church, but no trace of a holy well.

Directions

Holy well in the grounds of: St Juliot’s Well Holiday Park, Camelford PL32 9RF

www.juliotswell.com

W3W: steps.making.tomato

GPS: 50.6152N 4.7000W

St Julitta’s Church, Lanteglos PL32 9RG

https://www.lanteglosbycamelfordchurch.com/history

W3W: nuns.slanting.brave

GPS: 50.6093N 4.7035W

St Juliot’s Holiday Park is west of Camelford, off the B3266 on the outskirts of town. The well is 350m downhill from the reception, where the staff were very happy to give directions.

Walk downhill along the road between the pub and the reception. At the end the sealed road splits left and right, and a footpath leads straight ahead. Don’t take the footpath, but walk left into the sloping field and go diagonally to the bottom, through the gap into a second field. The well is at the bottom of this second field on the left, through a wooden gate marked ‘danger deep water’. Go through this gate and turn sharp left; the well is under the large tree, a few steps from the gate.