Healing spring
St Winefride's Well
St Winefride's Well is a healing spring that has been visited by pilgrims for more than a thousand years. Known as the 'Lourdes of Wales', it is still probably the oldest continually visited pilgrimage site in Great Britain. The healing waters have been said to cause miraculous cures. The legend of Saint Winifred tells how, in AD 660, Caradoc, the son of a local prince, severed the head of the young Winifred after she sp ...
Founded: c. 660 AD |
Location:
Holywell, United Kingdom
Featured Historic Landmarks, Sites & Buildings
Photo from Flickr, copyright Mr Phil Price
Historic Site of the week
Caerleon Roman Amphitheatre
Built around AD 90 to entertain the legionaries stationed at the fort of Caerleon (Isca), the impressive amphitheatre was the Roman equivalent of today’s multiplex cinema. Wooden benches provided seating for up to 6,000 spectators, who would gather to watch bloodthirsty displays featuring gladiatorial combat and exotic wild animals.
Long after the Romans left, the amphitheatre took on a new life in Arthurian legend. Geoffrey of Monmouth, the somewhat imaginative 12th-century scholar, wrote in his History of the Kings of Britain that Arthur was crowned in Caerleon and that the ruined amphitheatre was actually the remains of King Arthur’s Round Table.
Today it is the most complete Roman amphitheatre in Britain.