2000:0028 - ST PATRICK’S WELL, Legarhill, Armagh

NMI Burial Excavation Records

County: Armagh Site name: ST PATRICK’S WELL, Legarhill

Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 12:24 Licence number: AE/00/14

Author: Alan Reilly, NAC

Site type: Ritual site - holy well

Period/Dating: Medieval (AD 400-AD 1600)

ITM: E 686232m, N 845102m

Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.347308, -6.673649

This was a small housing development on the Killylea Road, Armagh. The development site lay a little west of Armagh City in the townland of Legarhill. The site was very close to the location of a medieval church (SMR 12:61), which appears as a ruin on Bartlett’s map of 1601. The site of a holy well was located within the development, downhill and to the south of the summit, where the medieval church seems to have been located. The topography of the part of the development site around the well strongly suggested that there would be little in the way of actual settlement on this spot, despite a historic church site being located on the hilltop.

The primary concern was the well itself. This was called ‘St Patrick’s Well’ on the first to fourth edition OS 6-inch maps. It was apparently visited by pilgrims annually on the feast of St Peter and St Paul (29 June). An ancient route between Navan Fort and Armagh passed just to the north. The well (a limestone spring) was, at the time of fieldwork, sitting in an isolated and deliberately undeveloped patch of the site. There had been a confusing amount of remodelling of the hill slope, due partly to the present development and partly to the housing development on the hilltop twenty years ago.

The small remaining undeveloped area around the well was mechanically stripped and cleaned up. Once subsoil was reached, it was certain that no more archaeology would be discovered and monitoring therefore ceased. No features or finds were noted.

Unit 6, Farset Enterprise Park, 638 Springfield Road, Belfast