St Ninian's Well

Another find for International Holy Wells' Month.
 
St Ninian's Well is in Brisco, 3 miles SE of Carlisle. A walk down a very, very muddy track (also known as the Elvis Presley Boulevard!), through a little gate and along a narrow, not muddy, footpath, brings you to a beautiful well in the middle of fields.
 
It has a flagged trough and a step down, suggesting that it was once used as a baptismal well. It was restored in the 1840s by Sarah Losh, to whom I have referred on several occasions in relation to the church she built in nearby Wreay. She added a carved stone arch and an inscription, which is eroded and unreadable, but was apparently a dedication to her sister Katherine. The setting is lovely, or at least it would be in the summer I suspect. At the moment there are a lot of snowdrops. I chose the mono process as it puts more emphasis on the well itself, rather than the vegetation around it. It's really nice seen large.
 
St Ninian is very much a Scottish saint, being credited with bringing the Christian faith to Scotland around 397AD. Supposedly British, he studied in Rome, and it was as he was making his way north to cross the Solway into South West Scotland, that he stopped off in a few places in the North of England. This may be one of the places where he rested, preached and baptised local people. (Another one was Lady's Well in Northumberland where I was last week.) And we will come across another of these places soon.