Good Friday 2022.   I took a walk from Port Meadow in Oxford to St Margaret’s Church in Binsey, a short distance in quiet countryside on the edge of the city. St Margaret’s Church is a little known gem in the middle of the fields; just two houses alongside. I started my walk in spring, at 13 degrees C, and finished at midday in summer, with 20 degrees at the The Punter pub on Osney Island.

St Margaret’s is a lovely, quiet old church mostly from the 13th century, though built on the site of a Saxon predecessor which was a place of pilgrimage for many centuries. The church was built next to St Margaret’s Well, the waters of which could reputedly heal the sick and ease the suffering.

The patron saint of Oxford, St Frideswide, is said to have cured the blindness of her fiance with water from the well, as well as by praying to St Margaret of Antioch, and the legend of the water’s miraculous healing powers grew to attract pilgrims from far and wide.

Certainly Henry VIII, a king known for his respect for ancient pilgrimage sites as well as other things, is said to have visited. More recently Lewis Carroll referred to it as the ‘Treacle Well’ in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – in medieval times treacle meant a ‘healing fluid’, rather than the sweet tart favoured by those with a sweet tooth today.

While outside the weather was balmy, inside the church was cold, as if still emerging from the depths of winter. Even today there is no electric lighting, services are by candlelight. I sat for a while to absorb the quiet, this haven of peace so close to the heart of Oxford’s bustling streets.

Outside I visited the well, clambered down and dipped my fingers in the water. Five centuries after Henry VIII and doing the same thing! Though at least I didn’t have his marriage problems to worry about.

Leaving the churchyard I saw my first butterfly of the year, and a little down the road a black rabbit. Never having seen a black member of the tribe before I was surprised, so who knows, perhaps the waters round here do have special properties.

Or it could be that I simply happened across one of the legendary Fiver’s descendants, now spread far and wide from Watership Down.

© Philip Hunt, 2022.

More information

See this fascinating article on Lewis Carroll’s ‘Treacle Well’ at St Margaret’s church Binsey, by Oxford historian Tony Morris.