St Govor's Well - Kensington Gardens, London, UK
N 51° 30.210 W 000° 11.067
30U E 695402 N 5709577
This well has been covered over and this round, stone memorial incorporates a drinking fountain. The well is mentioned in "Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens", by J M Barrie
Waymark Code: WMHQW4
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 08/06/2013
Views: 8
The text for "Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens" by J
M Barrie can be found at the
Project
Guttenberg website from whence these extracts are taken:
Next comes St. Govor's Well,
which was full of water when Malcolm the Bold fell into it. He was his
mother's favourite, and he let her put her arm round his neck in public
because she was a widow; but he was also partial to adventures, and liked to
play with a chimney-sweep who had killed a good many bears. The sweep's name
was Sooty, and one day, when they were playing near the well, Malcolm fell
in and would have been drowned had not Sooty dived in and rescued him; and
the water had washed Sooty clean, and he now stood revealed as Malcolm's
long-lost father. So Malcolm would not let his mother put her arm round his
neck any more.
Perhaps the most surprising thing
he found was a perambulator. It was under a lime-tree, near the entrance to
the Fairy Queen's Winter Palace (which is within the circle of the seven
Spanish chestnuts), and Peter approached it warily, for the birds had never
mentioned such things to him. Lest it was alive, he addressed it politely;
and then, as it gave no answer, he went nearer and felt it cautiously. He
gave it a little push, and it ran from him, which made him think it must be
alive after all; but, as it had run from him, he was not afraid. So he
stretched out his hand to pull it to him, but this time it ran at him, and
he was so alarmed that he leapt the railing and scudded away to his boat.
You must not think, however, that he was a coward, for he came back next
night with a crust in one hand and a stick in the other, but the
perambulator had gone, and he never saw any other one. I have promised to
tell you also about his paddle. It was a child's spade which he had found
near St. Govor's Well, and he thought it was a paddle.
Tony could always outdistance her
easily, but never had she known him speed away so quickly as now, and she
was sure he hurried that he might have more time to hide. 'Brave, brave!'
her doting eyes were crying when she got a dreadful shock; instead of
hiding, her hero had run out at the gate! At this bitter sight Maimie
stopped blankly, as if all her lapful of darling treasures were suddenly
spilled, and then for very disdain she could not sob; in a swell of protest
against all puling cowards she ran to St. Govor's Well and hid
in Tony's stead.
The memorial is in the form of a cylinder made from stone
with a drinking fountain in the top. The inscription runs in a spiral around the
stone and reads:
This drinking fountain marks the
site of an ancient spring, which in 1856 was named St Govor's Well by the
First Commissioner of Works later to become Lord Llandover. Saint Govor, a
sixth century hermit, was the patron saint of a church in Llandover which
had eight wells in its churchyard.
The
Secret London
website tells us:
St Govor’s Well
Some lovely calligraphy decorates the 1976 mounting for this ancient spring.
It was named after Saint Govor, the patron saint of Llanover in Wales -
famous for its springs - by Benjamin Hall, later Lord Llanover. Hall was
London’s first Commissioner for Works - and the man after whom ‘Big Ben’ is
named.