Well O'Spa is the name given to a 15th-century well in the city of Aberdeen, Scotland. This mineral well has been known since the fifteenth century. It has been destroyed by water spates from local burns or streams and moved to a new and safer site on several occasions. It is known as Callirhoe in ancient texts. The ferrous mineral quality of the water is due to a geological feature in the NE of Scotland and Aberdeen. Across Great Britain the place name "well" occurs over two thousand times. There are over one hundred occurrences of the name "well" in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. In the city of Aberdeen there are 27 wells that have provided drinking water for over five hundred years. Many of the actual wells and places with "well" in their name are associated with the Celtic period of Scottish History. The Well O'Spa is protected as a Category B listed building.
Location
The Well O’Spa is situated adjacent to Aberdeen City Library, St Mark's Church and His Majesty's Theatre in Aberdeen. On the face of the pediment are figures of the rising sun, the thistle, the rose and a fleur-de-lys. In addition, the following inscriptions:
.. Renovatum est opus Anno MDCCCLI [..] As Heaven Gives to me so I Give to thee..[..] Spada Redivivera 1670… In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the well was located adjacent to what was known as the "Playe Green". It now lies in a peaceful square overlooked by a modern car park and an elegant granite building. The well is marked by a red sandstone and granite monument – part of which is from the seventeenth century. It carries the following inscription on its pediment " ..HOC FONTE DERIVATA SALUS; IN PATRIAM POPULUMQUE FLUAT..". This is carved on sandstone blocks. Over time the well has been rebuilt several times and moved to sites within the Woolmanhill area of Aberdeen before reaching its present position. Any water at the site now comes from the mains water supply of the city.
History
The first written record of the well and its curative properties can be found in a monograph published in 1580 called "Ane Breif Descriptioun of the Qualiteis and Effectis of the Well of the Woman Hill Besyde Abirdene". The author was Gilbert Skene who was "Mediciner" or Professor of Medicine at King's College, Aberdeen. Woman's Hill is better known to-day as Woolmanhill and the site of a local hospital. It is likely that the name "Spa" comes from the Belgian town Spa, Belgium. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Aberdeen had a lively trading relationship with Europe – especially "The Low Countries". A key figure in looking after the well in the seventeenth century was an Aberdeen landowner and Bailie. In 1670 Bailie Alexander Skene of Newtyle applied to the Council to re-build and refurnish the well. At the same time, he had re-published at his own expense, the tract by William Barclay on Callirhoe. This tract was intended to support the medicinal claims made foe the well. Skene's structure was not completed until 1685. A contemporary account relates the benefits of the mineral water:
[..] the solicitous desire of some diseased citizens who did find renewed experiences of its powerful virtues in the cure of tormenting gravels, deadly colicks and desperate hydropsies [..] In his application to the Town Council, which was readily agreed to, Skene wrote a letter referring to Jamesone the painter to attract the attention of Council members.
[..] There is the well of Spa, that healthful font, Whose yr’ne-hewe’d water coloureth the mount. Not far from thence a garden’s to be seen, Which unto Jameson did appertain, Where in a little pleasant house doth stand,
Painted (as I guess) with its master’s hand…[..] In it, he recalls an earlier spate that had destroyed the well :
[..] …the well had been adorned with a long wyde stone which conveyed the waters of the spring with the purtraicture of six Apolsles hewen upon either side thereof which being very old and worne, a virtuous citizen George Jamesone .. did built it of new and put a Tomb of hewen stone over it .. [however] a violent torrent of waters falling into that stream running by it did suddenly overturn it and buried the spring in the ruins so much of the hill having fallen therewith [..] The stream was the Den (burn) or the Gilcomston Burn. Skene sums up the benefits of the well thus:
[..] We have a choice Medicinall Spring, called the Well of Spa, at Woolmanhill, built with hewn ston[e], very specific for the Gout, Gravell, Collick and Hydripsie, as the late famous Dr. William Barclay, physician did learnedly describe in 1615 … to which every person concerned to know its vertues and how to use the same, is referred….[..] In 1751 the well disappeared and it was many years before it was moved once again and renovated by Dr James Gordon of Pitlurg. It is believed that two cups hung from chains and the people of Denburn regularly used the water until they were connected to the city's water supply.
Mineral water properties The well was a source a mineral water with red ferrous sediment. It has been used by generations of Aberdonians such as the eminent seventeenth century portrait painter George Jamesone, known as the Scottish van Dyck. Jamesone suffered from "calculus" or bladder stones. It was firmly believed in his time that the chalybeate properties of the waters cured this and many other conditions – including infertility. Jamesone more than anyone else cared for the well and was directly responsible for one re-construction that was destroyed in 1650. The water at the Well o’Spa derived its potency from dissolved ferrous carbonate that came from the red sandstone bedrock that underpins the Woolmanhill area of Aberdeen, and secondly rain, containing carbonic acid which percolated into the ground and dissolved more of the iron salts. This resulted in iron carbonate being dissolved in the medicinal spring water. When this iron-rich water emerges at a well site, oxygen in air turns the iron carbonate into an iron oxide. The reddish scum often seen around chalybeate wells is iron oxide. So, when people "take the waters" they are consuming minute quantities of iron salts. These iron salts may have an effect on bladder and other medical problems. It was believed in the past that it did so, people drank it to cure their medical conditions.
Inscription
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