Hero
Rosamund's Bower
Follow the silk, find the secret.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Small spring-fed stone-edged pool below the lake
- Legend from
- Later ballads and chronicles
- Tone
- Melancholy
A secret garden, a maze, and a jealous queen following a silk thread to the king's beloved.
Below the lake in Blenheim Park a spring feeds a small stone-edged pool. This is Fair Rosamund's Well. In the 1100s it was the heart of Everswell, a private garden retreat of pools and buildings near Henry II's royal house at Woodstock. Legend made it Rosamund's bower: a hiding place inside a maze, where the king kept her from Queen Eleanor. In the story the queen followed a silken thread through the maze to find her rival. The pool is real, but the maze and the thread belong to later ballads.