Sacred London: its holy wells and hidden alignments.

A look at London's lost holy wells and their relationships to ancient alignments.

This talk brings together two areas of research, the lost holy wells of London and their relationship to the hidden geometry and alignments that established a pattern for the development of the capital. The concept of the ‘holy well’, with its medicinal healing properties has been firmly established since antiquity. London originally boasted many such wells, which sadly have been mostly lost, except in street or place names. With the use of modern mapping techniques and research into historical documents it is now possible to pin-point the location of these wells and to discover what has happened to them. Although water is a natural phenomenon these wells can often be found on the alignments within the capital, such as the ‘holy well’ in the Strand, which suggests there may be a connection between the two. London’s alignments were certainly formulated in Roman times but there are hints that the patterns pre-dated that period and that these were also used in the development of London, possibly through Masonic influence. For example ‘The Broadwalk’, in Regents Park, established by John Nash in the 18th century, is precisely aligned to the tumulus on Hampstead Heath. This hidden heritage should not be lost and may have relevance to the future development of London.

David Furlong has been researching landscape patterns for more than thirty years. He is the author of five books including, Working With Earth Energies and The Keys to the Temple, which explored the hidden geometry of the Marlborough Downs and its link to the Avebury complex. He is at present researching the lost wells of London for a future book.

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