From Fosbrooke's _British Monachism_ we learn that "on a spot called Nell's Point, is a fine well, to which great numbers of women resort on Holy Thursday, and, having washed their eyes in the spring, they drop a pin into it. Once a year, at St. Mardrin's well, also, lame persons went on Corpus Christi evening, to lay some small offering on the altar, there to lie on the ground all night, drink of the water there, and on the next morning to take a good draught more of it, and carry away some of the water each in a bottle at their departure. At Muswell Hill was formerly a chapel, called our Lady of Muswell, from a well there, near which was her image; this well was continually resorted to by way of pilgrimage. At Walsingham, a fine green road was made for the pilgrims, and there was a holy well and cross adjacent, at which pilgrims used to kneel while drinking the water. It is remarkable that the Anglo-Saxon laws had proscribed this as idolatrous. Such springs were consecrated upon the discovery of cures effected by them. In fact," Fosbrooke adds, "these consecrated wells merely imply a knowledge of the properties of mineral waters, but, through ignorance, a religious appropriation of their properties was made to supernatural causes." "Holywell, in the county of Flint," we are informed by Salverte, "derives its name from the Holy Well of St. Winifred, over which a chapel was erected by the Stanley family, in the reign of Henry VII. The well was formerly in high repute as a medicinal spring. Pennant says that, in his time, Lancashire pilgrims were to be seen in deep devotion, standing in the waters up to the chin for hours, sending up prayers, and making a prescribed number of turnings; and this excess of piety was carried so far, as in several instances to cost the devotees their lives."[36]