Clerkenwell, Goswell, Sadler’s Wells … even Coldbath Square … these names all commemorate the historic water supplies of Clerkenwell.
Wells and streams supplied Clerkenwell and its inhabitants long before there was any piped water.
Water from wells and springs was thought to have medicinal value. (It was certainly a lot healthier, as we now know, than the cholera-infected water from piped water sources.)
That was the basis for the popularity of Sadler’s Wells in the 1680s. If thousands of people were going to congregate anywhere for a day-out they would obviously need a ready source of water. So, springs and wells often became the centre for organised amusements and pleasures,
Cold Bath of Cold Bath Square was connected to a spring from 1697. There was a water source called New Tunbridge Wells, also called Islington spa, close to Sadler’s Wells. That is probably where Spa Fields derived its name.
There was one called the London’s Spaw. Just outside Clerkenwell is Bagnige Wells. White Conduit Street must also have had a water link.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries large parts of Clerkenwell were occupied by breweries and distilleries: Booth’s Gin distillery on Turnmill Street, Nicholsons’ distillery and Canon Brewery, both on St John Street. These all depended on a constant source of spring and well water, which seems to have been readily available in that area of Clerkenwell.
The most famous well of all is the one which gave its name to the entire area – Clerks’ Well – which was for centuries lost, but was re-discovered in 1924 under Nos. 13 – 16 Farringdon Lane.
‘Fons clericorum’ – Latin for the fountain of the clerks, meaning clerics – was first mentioned by William FitzStephen writing about London in 1183. He said it was a place “visited by thicker throngs and greater multitudes of students from the schools and of the young men of the City, who go out on summer evenings to take the air”. Stowe related that Clerks Well took its name from “the parish clerks in London, who of old time were accustomed there yearly to assemble and to play some large history of holy Scripture”. He went on to mention festivals lasting as long as three or eight days which were held at the nearby Skinners Well during the reigns of Richard II and Henry IV. Peter Ackroyd in London, The biography says Clerk’s Well was “the site of the stage where mystery plays were performed ‘for centuries beyond the memory of man'”.
‘Clerks’ or clerics developed from the Latin word for clergy – ‘clerici’. And the sources have made mention of clerks performing religious mystery plays and plays about sacred scriptures. But it seems that the sacred elements of the events were an excuse for a good party.
The prioress of St Mary’s convent complained to Edward I that crowds of Londoners trampled down her nunnery’s hedges fields and crops when they congregated at these frequent gatherings. Edward I responded in 1301 calling for better control of wrestling and other games which were popular at the time on the outskirts of London mediaeval London.
These contests obviously continued, despite the prioress’s complaints, because Stowe complains in the 16th century that wrestling had usurped the sacred plays at Skinners Well. There are other references to “le wrestlingplace” in North Clerkenwell.
Unfortunately, Clerkenwell is a much more sedate place today.