It was a bright, cold April day. A day of missed turnings. We eventually managed to navigate the car up the one-track Winterburn Lane and pulled in to a stopping place just after the bridge over Eshton Beck. The map was a little ambiguous, so we aimed for a likely looking stand of trees on the east side of the road near the beck. We followed the footpath along the bottom of the hill, below the Giants' Graves, and the boys enjoyed leaping into the deep patches of snow still dotted around in the fields, but our search proved luckless. Returning along the same footpath, we admired the many windows of
Friar's Head and then headed back to the bridge and the trusty Volvo. Not wanting to give up, we walked a little further up the road - spotting some kind of water-pumping facility. At that point I noticed a drain that seemed to have an unusual amount of water flowing through it. I followed the road uphill a little further and found water issuing from under a mossy stone wall. A quick look over the wall confirmed it - here was St Helen's Well. We had driven straight past it, missing the tiny oval plaque on the wall.
The well consists of one pool which is constantly bubbling with fresh water rising up from below, and a second pool separated from the first by the mysterious stonework (missing the secret heads now, sadly). This pool then drains out under the surrounding wall and down the roadside until the stream enters the beck right by the bridge.
