Saint
St Chad's Well
Cold water, first converts, a bishop's blessing.
Stand where it happened
- What's there
- Small reconstructed stone well-house by a church
- Legend from
- Church tradition
- Tone
- Curious
Here, they say, St Chad baptised the first Christians of Mercia in spring water.
Chad was made bishop of the Mercians by Archbishop Theodore after 669, with Lichfield chosen as the centre of the new diocese, and he died in 672. Beside St Chad's Church at Stowe is St Chad's Well, where tradition says Chad baptised his converts. The present well-house is a reconstruction, now a listed building. The well is part of a wider web of Chad dedications across the West Midlands. His shrine at the cathedral nearby, consecrated in 700, drew pilgrims until it was destroyed in 1538.