News Template

July 2001

Parish History Episode 3

THE WELLS OF OFFERING

The Stone Age and Bronze Age peoples who built the tumulus at Copt Hill, and who reconstructed it from time to time, are, to us, anonymous. We do not know what they called themselves, who their friends and their enemies were, what language they spoke: we know nothing of their religion, except that little we can infer from their burial customs.

But some Bronze Age people - not, apparently, those around Houghton, but people far away, in Bible Lands, like Tubal-Cain (Genesis 422), “an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron” - discovered the art of smelting iron, and producing superior weapons to those known hitherto. The Philistines and the Hittites seem to have been ahead of the Hebrews in the discovery, and we learn in I Samuel 1319 that they made a non-proliferation treaty and forebade the Hebrews to manufacture iron swords or spears. But in Europe an Alpine people called the Celts seem to have been pioneers of the new weaponry, and from their mountainous home they spread over much of Europe : to Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, Serbia, and as far East as modern Turkey, where they gave their name to Galatia, where Paul would later preach; to Greece, where they briefly took Delphi, and to Italy, where they briefly took Rome; and to Spain, France and the British Isles.

They may only have been a conquering aristocracy in these islands, spread thinly everywhere, like the later Normans, but they imposed their language, their culture, and their Druidical religion on the British Isles, and the natives became, in effect, Celts. This “Celtic Empire”, stretching from Ireland to Turkey, was soon to be eliminated by joint pressure from the Germanic peoples, in the North, and the Romans, in the South, and it was never of course a unitary state like the later Roman Empire. It was divided into large numbers of petty tribal kingdoms. One of them, the Kingdom of the Brigante's, was centered on what would later become the counties of Durham and of the North and West Ridings of Yorkshire, and hence covered the area of Houghton-le-Spring.

The name of the Brigante's comes from the Deity they worshipped, a water-goddess, or nymph as the Romans would call her, named Brigid, The Brigante's seem to have been in origin a group of tribes united in the worship of Brigid, just as the Hebrews, in the time of the Judges, possessed some degree of unity in their common devotion to Yahweh/Jehovah/the LORD. Place-names dedicated to Brigid occur in many Celtic lands, and her cult can perhaps be traced back to Lake Konstanz, on the Upper Rhine, on the borders of Germany and Switzerland, which seems once to have been sacred to her. She was worshipped by sacred pools, mostly a lot smaller than Lake Konstanz, round which her devotees gathered, and threw treasured items, such as weapons and jewellery into the water, in an effort to gain her favour with the higher gods : such ponds and lakes are to-day ideal places for archaeologists to search for the artefacts they use to learn about Celtic life. A darker side of Druidical religion was that human and animal sacrifices were also on occasion thrown into these sacred pools.

If the cult of Brigid began on the Upper Rhine, it eventually spread not only to the Isle of Britain, but also to Ireland, where it is known at sites in County Waterford. Then, about A.D. 450, a girl was born, at Faughart, in Ireland, and given the name of Brigid. She was to become a companion of Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland, and was to be the foundress of a Community of devoted women at Kildare, the first Christian nuns in Ireland, perhaps in all of the British Isles. Though she bears the name of a pagan goddess, she was a real woman, and has been regarded as a saint from shortly after the time of her death in 523 ( if not before then ).

She became a very popular saint, and dedications to her (usually in the form of St. Bridget or St. Bride) sprang up everywhere, throughout the British Isles, and in those parts of the European mainland which were to be evangelised by Irish missionaries, and in Scandinavia which was evangelised by English missionaries. Additional confusion was caused eight hundred years later by the appearance of another saint, bearing the Swedish version of Brigid’s name, Birgitta; and Birgitta of Sweden was, like Brigid of Kildare, also to be the foundress of a religious Community for women ( the Bridgettines).
Holy streams, ponds, springs and wells dedicated to Saint Brigid, under one or other of her local names (the best known is perhaps Bridewell, in London - a place which would one day become a prison) are to be found in many parts of the British Isles, and it is usually impossible to say whether the original dedication was to the Celtic goddess or to the Irish saint: unless the archaeologist drains the pool, and discovers evidence of human or other sacrifices. If such finds are made, he knows that he is dealing with rites far older than those of Brigid of Kildare.
There is no evidence for any such holy well in Houghton; indeed, there is no evidence that the place was even inhabited in Brigantian times. However, Houghton--le-Spring lies just below a limestone ridge, that line of hills which cuts us off from the sea. This ridge is in origin an ancient barrier reef, like that which now lies off the coast of Queensland, which was formed in an ocean that existed during the Permian Age (about eight hundred million years ago) out of the limey skeletons of myriads of tiny creatures which swam in that sea; and limestone is an exceptionally permeable rock, so that the rain which falls upon it tends to sink into the ground rather than to run off as streams and rivers. It sinks until it meets harder rock, and then it runs along horizontally, on top of the less pervious rock, until it gushes out at the base of the limestone in springs of fresh water, an excellent place for farmers to settle. And Houghton-le-Spring lies on just such a “spring line” (hence its name). Thus, it would be a good place for farmers to settle down.
There were once ponds around the spring line; for instance, in the field just East of the A182 at Grasswell (now just marshy ground). There was also Houghton Lake itself, where Lake Road now is. This was a natural pond, later enlarged as a mill pond, and then, after being drained, the site was used first for Houghton Feast, then for a bus station, and now for an enterprise centre. But there is no evidence that any of these pools were ever held sacred.
Three people have asserted the contrary to me. One of them was the late Ken Richardson, a prominent local historian, and I suspect the other two were influenced by him. They claimed that the sacred pond was around where Houghton Pit was later sunk, that it was known as the Holy Well, and that this name still exists in the form of Halliwell House and Halliwell Street, at the bottom of Station Road. I feel that it is more likely that these places are named after a Mr. Halliwell, who perhaps once lived in Halliwell House. But I have no evidence of that theory, either.

For further reading :-
Jack LINDSAY, The Romans Were Here, Frederick Muller, London, 1956

Frank DELANEY, The Celts, B.B.C. Publications, London, 1986

Peter Berrisaford ELLIS, The Celtic Empire, Constable, London, 1990