Many years ago Malvern water was remarkable for its healing virtue, an efficacy that was held to be supernatural.
How early the waters gained local repute it is impossible to say; but the fact that the old spring at Great Malvern is dedicated to St. Ann, and that the well at Malvern Wells is the Holy Well, carries their reputation far back into the Middle Ages at least. Documentary evidence exists that they were in demand early in the seventeenth century, especially for skin diseases, as public open baths.
In Banister's Breviary of the Eye, published 1622, reference is made to the use of the Malvern waters by persons with sore eyes:-
" A little more I'll of their curying telle,
How theye help sore eyes with a new founde welle Greete speeche of Malvern Hills was late reported, Untoe which spring people in troopes resorted."
The great fashionable impulse to the use of the waters was given in the middle of the eighteenth century by Dr. John Wall, the Worcester physician, to whose ingenuity was due the inception of Worcester porcelain. Although Drs. Gully and Wilson are commonly regarded as the introducers of hydropathy to Malvern, their method of treating diseases was in some measure anticipated by the methods of Dr. Wall, under whom" the usual practice in cutaneous foulness was to go into the water with the linen on, and dress upon it wet."
On the hillside above the St. Peter's Church at Malvern Wells is the Holy Well, one of the springs that first made Malvern famous.
" Fountain of health and purest spring that flows" sang Dr. Booker, one of Malvern's sons. Its water is, indeed, of such remarkable purity that chemists used to use it instead of distilled water. It flows from the spring at the rate of two gallons a minute.
The curious may care to visit the site of the Eye Well, famed in bygone days It is near Holy Well House, a late Georgian structure.
St. Ann's Well is situated on the side of the Worcestershire Beacon, at a height of 820 feet.
The following are less known springs :-
The Hay Well, from which the monks of Malvern Priory drew their supply of water by means of pipes that were discovered a few years ago. It is the most abundant of the Malvern springs, and is now private property.
The Chalybeate Spring, which rises at Spa Cottage, in private grounds at the back of the Winter Gardens.
Lord Sandys' Spring, in Spring Lane, another spring is in private hands. It is named after a Lord Sandys who for several years paid a daily morning visit for the purpose of drinking the water. This at one time was so highly esteemed that it was sold at a shilling a gallon, and was sent far and wide in jars by coach and carrier.
Walm's Well, named after a missionary to the Romans and Celts is in the fastnesses of the Herefordshire Beacon. It is situated within the fringe of Eastnor Woods, and is supposed to have supplied the neighbouring camp with water.
The Royal Malvern Well, at West Malvern, near the Wyche Pass, was discovered in the reign of Queen Victoria, and received the designation of Royal by her express permission.
In the heyday of the "water cure" at Malvern in the middle of the 19th century, the vicinity of the springs often presented amusing sights, although the patients did not take their full quantity at anyone well or spring, but drank a little at every one of the numerous rills they came to in their mountain or roadside walks. That a draught might be obtained from the shallow rills, each carried a Graffenberg glass, " a sort of tumbler flattened as though you had put it in your pocket soft and sat on it."
The" Moist Visitor" tells us in his diary that, having provided himself with the regulation glass, he went, at the most orthodox time in the morning, namely, after the first bath, to the Hay Well, which was opposite Dr. Wilson's establishment, and there found a circle of patients round the spring " all at work filling themselves like so many water casks. One of the company had a tin saucepan with a long handle with which he baled from the well into the glasses of the water drinkers. They drank slowly, sipped or sucked in the element as though it were twenty port and they wished to make every delicious drop of it touch the palate before passing down."
Not relishing water much and thinking that the sooner he
imbibed his share the better, the " Moist Visitor" tossed off a tumbler. The other drinkers looked in astonishment, and one politely admonished him that such a mode was most injurious. He should have been at least five minutes emptying his glass.
From the Hay Well he went to St. Ann's Well, where some who had preceded him were" again at work imbibing as earnestly as ever with the same nose-in-glass and glassy stare as before. I thought," says the diarist, " of what old Weller said of the guests at the tea party. 'They were a wisibly swellin' afore my eyes, sir.' 'Twas frightful the quantity some of them took." One gentleman averred that he always drank thirty Graffenberg glasses before breakfast, a quantity equal to some twelve or fourteen good-sized tumblers. "His idea was you should give the inner man a bath as well as the outer."
From St. Ann' s Well our humorist proceeded to the Malvern turnpike on the Ledbury road, close to which was another spout, and there also he found a group of aquatic pilgrims. They were nearly the same as at Hay Well and St. Ann's, " and by this time they had, I suspect," he says, " swallowed enough, if well shaken, to make them rattle like so many Spanish water skins' or milk pail panniers."
Alas, water was not the only thing that could be obtained at a well when the custodian thereof was a traitor. Patients with a will too weak to withstand the inward craving for a modern equivalent for the flesh-pots of Egypt could there be satisfied. As bearing on this sad subject the following story of an illustrious patient may not be out of place.
Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, it is said, was tempted by some ladies of Dr. Wilson's hydropathic establishment to break bounds and go to a coffee shop for tarts, of which they offered him a share. Returning to the house he met Dr. Wilson, and was seen to put the sweet morsels under the skirts of his coat.
" What have you there, sir ? " fell upon his ears.
" Oh, nothing, doctor; only a tart or two," was the meek reply.
" Only a tart or two," exclaimed the doctor. "Only a dose of poison to destroy the stomach. Throw them away this moment, sir."
And he did!
How early the waters gained local repute it is impossible to say; but the fact that the old spring at Great Malvern is dedicated to St. Ann, and that the well at Malvern Wells is the Holy Well, carries their reputation far back into the Middle Ages at least. Documentary evidence exists that they were in demand early in the seventeenth century, especially for skin diseases, as public open baths.
In Banister's Breviary of the Eye, published 1622, reference is made to the use of the Malvern waters by persons with sore eyes:-
" A little more I'll of their curying telle,
How theye help sore eyes with a new founde welle Greete speeche of Malvern Hills was late reported, Untoe which spring people in troopes resorted."
The great fashionable impulse to the use of the waters was given in the middle of the eighteenth century by Dr. John Wall, the Worcester physician, to whose ingenuity was due the inception of Worcester porcelain. Although Drs. Gully and Wilson are commonly regarded as the introducers of hydropathy to Malvern, their method of treating diseases was in some measure anticipated by the methods of Dr. Wall, under whom" the usual practice in cutaneous foulness was to go into the water with the linen on, and dress upon it wet."
On the hillside above the St. Peter's Church at Malvern Wells is the Holy Well, one of the springs that first made Malvern famous.
" Fountain of health and purest spring that flows" sang Dr. Booker, one of Malvern's sons. Its water is, indeed, of such remarkable purity that chemists used to use it instead of distilled water. It flows from the spring at the rate of two gallons a minute.
The curious may care to visit the site of the Eye Well, famed in bygone days It is near Holy Well House, a late Georgian structure.
St. Ann's Well is situated on the side of the Worcestershire Beacon, at a height of 820 feet.
The following are less known springs :-
The Hay Well, from which the monks of Malvern Priory drew their supply of water by means of pipes that were discovered a few years ago. It is the most abundant of the Malvern springs, and is now private property.
The Chalybeate Spring, which rises at Spa Cottage, in private grounds at the back of the Winter Gardens.
Lord Sandys' Spring, in Spring Lane, another spring is in private hands. It is named after a Lord Sandys who for several years paid a daily morning visit for the purpose of drinking the water. This at one time was so highly esteemed that it was sold at a shilling a gallon, and was sent far and wide in jars by coach and carrier.
Walm's Well, named after a missionary to the Romans and Celts is in the fastnesses of the Herefordshire Beacon. It is situated within the fringe of Eastnor Woods, and is supposed to have supplied the neighbouring camp with water.
The Royal Malvern Well, at West Malvern, near the Wyche Pass, was discovered in the reign of Queen Victoria, and received the designation of Royal by her express permission.
In the heyday of the "water cure" at Malvern in the middle of the 19th century, the vicinity of the springs often presented amusing sights, although the patients did not take their full quantity at anyone well or spring, but drank a little at every one of the numerous rills they came to in their mountain or roadside walks. That a draught might be obtained from the shallow rills, each carried a Graffenberg glass, " a sort of tumbler flattened as though you had put it in your pocket soft and sat on it."
The" Moist Visitor" tells us in his diary that, having provided himself with the regulation glass, he went, at the most orthodox time in the morning, namely, after the first bath, to the Hay Well, which was opposite Dr. Wilson's establishment, and there found a circle of patients round the spring " all at work filling themselves like so many water casks. One of the company had a tin saucepan with a long handle with which he baled from the well into the glasses of the water drinkers. They drank slowly, sipped or sucked in the element as though it were twenty port and they wished to make every delicious drop of it touch the palate before passing down."
Not relishing water much and thinking that the sooner he
imbibed his share the better, the " Moist Visitor" tossed off a tumbler. The other drinkers looked in astonishment, and one politely admonished him that such a mode was most injurious. He should have been at least five minutes emptying his glass.
From the Hay Well he went to St. Ann's Well, where some who had preceded him were" again at work imbibing as earnestly as ever with the same nose-in-glass and glassy stare as before. I thought," says the diarist, " of what old Weller said of the guests at the tea party. 'They were a wisibly swellin' afore my eyes, sir.' 'Twas frightful the quantity some of them took." One gentleman averred that he always drank thirty Graffenberg glasses before breakfast, a quantity equal to some twelve or fourteen good-sized tumblers. "His idea was you should give the inner man a bath as well as the outer."
From St. Ann' s Well our humorist proceeded to the Malvern turnpike on the Ledbury road, close to which was another spout, and there also he found a group of aquatic pilgrims. They were nearly the same as at Hay Well and St. Ann's, " and by this time they had, I suspect," he says, " swallowed enough, if well shaken, to make them rattle like so many Spanish water skins' or milk pail panniers."
Alas, water was not the only thing that could be obtained at a well when the custodian thereof was a traitor. Patients with a will too weak to withstand the inward craving for a modern equivalent for the flesh-pots of Egypt could there be satisfied. As bearing on this sad subject the following story of an illustrious patient may not be out of place.
Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, it is said, was tempted by some ladies of Dr. Wilson's hydropathic establishment to break bounds and go to a coffee shop for tarts, of which they offered him a share. Returning to the house he met Dr. Wilson, and was seen to put the sweet morsels under the skirts of his coat.
" What have you there, sir ? " fell upon his ears.
" Oh, nothing, doctor; only a tart or two," was the meek reply.
" Only a tart or two," exclaimed the doctor. "Only a dose of poison to destroy the stomach. Throw them away this moment, sir."
And he did!
