All images and text are Copyright 2003 Terry Faull.

The use of Holy Wells as a source of influence and income did not escape the medieval church authorities. By granting and perhaps creating the practice of veneration at a particular holy well, the church was in effect exercising its authority and control over the spiritual lives of the people. It is perhaps for this reason that some wells carry a dedication to Our Lady (which has become Lady Well) or to the patron of the local church; elsewhere many  sites less favourable to clerical oversight have retained dedications to older Saints or local names. Holy relics were prized possessions and the benefits of attracting pilgrims by the identification of a church and a well with a Saint was sometimes a temptation to create a tradition where perhaps none existed before.

The Protestant Reformation led to a general disaffection with relics and symbols and Holy Wells were not exempt from this. Nevertheless there is little evidence for wholesale destruction  and indeed the period through the Puritan reforms and up to early 19^th century is better characterised by general indifference from the authorities rather than by active opposition to the continued local traditions and customs associated with many Holy Wells.

In the 19^th century there was a revival of interest in British tradition and folklore. It is to this period that we owe much of the recording by clerics and local historians of the traditions and existence of Holy Wells in Tarka Country and elsewhere. Some of their work is coloured by a certain romantic view of the past or by the inclination of local people to say what they thought their questioner wanted to hear. Nevertheless without their work and the stimulus it provided for more recent researchers, much of the information about Holy Wells would have been lost.