All images and text are Copyright 2003 Terry Faull.

With very few exceptions, the story of the Holy Wells in Tarka Country is a combination of historical fact, local tradition and a certain amount of conjecture and interpretation. Names and traditions have become changed by the passage of time, by misunderstanding or simply a mis-reading of the facts. Nevertheless for most of the sites, it is fair to claim that they have a direct link with times when the Holy Well was an important part of the belief and cultural life of the neighbourhood; many are the oldest remaining historical site which can still be identified from the time of pre-Norman and even pre-Anglo-Saxon Britain.

 They belong to an age when people felt more able to externalise their spiritual life and may yet have a role to play as a gateway in the inner journey which everyone has to make. More Holy Wells have been lost and destroyed in the past 60 years then in the previous 600 years; whether because of their spiritual value or simply as places of historical interest, there is however still the opportunity to re-discover and save those which remain.