St. Bede's Well Totem Information

St Bede’s Well is a hidden, historic treasure named after the local saint, Venerable Bede. The site of an ancient spring believed to have healing properties, it is one of Tyneside’s oldest relics. The Well was granted Listed Building status in 1949 and as such is part of a unique register of our country’s most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public. According to legend, Bede visited the Well as a boy and later preached there, converting the local Anglo-Saxon population to Christianity. Sitting in Hebburn, on the border with Jarrow and Monkton, it dates back centuries - perhaps to the Dark Ages. Older maps sometimes refer to the Well as being in Jarrow, on land which in ancient times belonged to the Monastery. 

The term ‘Well’ is misleading. It was, in fact, a spring in a now-culverted stream called Bede’s Burn - an ancient waterway which appears on early maps of the area. The Well was considered to have curative properties - and sick adults and children would travel from far and wide to be dipped into the water in a bid to cure them of infirmities. Toward the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, the Well narrowly survived the onslaught of industrialisation. Thousands of tons of slag and waste from nearby Palmer’s Shipyard and Ironworks, the giant plant on the River Tyne at Jarrow, was dumped there. As well as having a long-standing reputation as a place with supposed magical healing powers and being a popular destination for a peaceful stroll, St Bede’s Well was well-known to people in Hebburn and Jarrow as a ‘wishing well’ where young lovers would conduct private romantic rendezvous and throw pins and coins in for good luck. The spot has a forgotten darker history too. In 1884, the Jarrow Express reported an attempted shotgun murder which took place there. In the same year, the Shields Gazette told how police officers interrupted an arranged prize fight at the “very secluded spot”, leading to the boxers and a large crowd of spectators running away towards the open countryside.