St Clethers

Yesterday we went somewhere very special, St Clether's Holy Well and Chapel. To reach the chapel you walk through the graveyard of the Victorian church and along the side of a valley, with a river below you and the occasional rocky outcrop above. The spring bubbles out into a lovely well house with a thorn tree above decorated with clooties. The water then flows downhill out of the wellhouse and under the path into the chapel where it passes underneath the altar. In the wall of the chapel is the lower well house where the water can be seen again before passing under the yard.

The yard is bordered by trees full of bird feeders and birds and slopes towards the valley. At the lower edge, it looks as if the lower part of the yard is supported on a terrace and the water bubbles out of this terrace and flows down the hill to the river. Before it gets there though it has to pass through a little bridge and into a pool. The pool is obviously man made and of great signifcance too as it has an obviously man made bank and a little island in the middle.

Very beautiful and very peaceful.... or it would have been if we had not been there to drum!

It was a lovely afternoon. It was supposed to be cold and winter but instead we had briliant sunshine and it was relatively warm. The snowdrops were in bloom and daffs were beginning to poke their heads out. As we left, F and I went down to the pool and a huge flock of starlings flew directly over us, from the chapel to the river and beyond, flying South. As we walked back to the car, more flocks flew overhead flying more and more to the South West each time, all going to the same place....

Flocks seem to have some special significance for me right now, although I have not figured it out at all...

Drumming, as always, was lovely... And the focus was very much on the place that we were. Not surprisingly, the journeys were full of water. This is a place I want to visit again though - when I can enjoy the atmosphere of peace perhaps....