Off the top of your head, how many places in Buxton can you think of that are named after St Anne? The staff here at the museum can name two churches, one primary school, one hotel (now known as The Crescent), one public park (commonly called The Slopes) and one well. But who is St Anne, namesake to so much of the town, and why did she replace the Roman and Celtic gods as the patron of Buxton’s well?

A clue to the answer lies is the Roman Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity in 312 CE. While some of the old gods were integrated into this new empire-wide faith, many ceased to be worshipped, or were only worshipped in secret. The old practise of dressing wells to honour the gods also stopped, rejuvenated only centuries later.  Although worship of the old gods at Buxton’s well many have continued privately, it was not until the 1520s that it was dedicated to St Anne.

But who is St Anne? According to the Bible, she is the mother of the Virgin Mary and therefore the grandmother of Jesus. Amongst other things, she is the patroness of grandmothers, woman wanting to get pregnant, educators, cabinet makers and miners. Considering that Derbyshire has been mined since the Romans, we can see why a saint such as Anne would appeal to the area and why the local people would want her special blessings and protection. In 1521, a Sir Henry Willoughby was the first to record a link between the patronage of St Anne and healing waters, although the earliest surviving English text mentioning St Anne dates to the 1130’s. She is traditionally celebrated on the 26th July.

St Anne’s Well in Buxton was only open 18 years under its new saintly patron before it was closed, because of its religious connection, during Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1538. It was open again by the reign of Henry VIII’s daughter, Elizabeth I, as in 1572, the Derby doctor John Jones wrote the first medical book on the waters of St Anne’s Well. It was called The Benefit of the Auncient Bathes of Buckstones, which Cureth most grievous Sickness. Clearly Jones’s book did the trick as a year later, Mary Queen of Scots travelled to Buxton aiming to cure her rheumatism – to learn more about her visit, check out our previously published blog Buxton Hosts a Queen. St Anne’s Well continued to a be a literary inspiration, demonstrated Thomas Hobbes’ 1636 work, De Mirabilibus Pecci: Being the Wonders of the Peak in Darby-Shire, a copy of which is housed in the museum’s Wonders of the Peak exhibition. The exhibition is named for Hobbes’ work, in which he declares St Anne’s Well as on of the seven wonders of the peak: ‘two fonts, two caves. One palace, mount and pit’. In his text, Hobbes mentions the important link between St Anne and the healing water as “The Barren hither to be fruitful come, And without the help of spouse, go pregnant home”.

The waters continued to be an attraction throughout the 17th and 18th centuries as a spa town under the guardianship of the Dukes of Devonshire. Moving into the Victorian period in the 19th century, Buxton continued to market itself as a spa town. This marketing coincided with the growth of ‘Victorian medievalism’, in which the Victorians reintroduced medieval pageantry and produced art and literature about mythical medieval figures such as King Arthur. Though we cannot pinpoint an exact date when the well dressing tradition of the Roman and Celts died out, we do know that the Victorians brought it back with a bang, focusing particularly on St Anne’s Well.

It is the Victorian iteration of well dressing which we participate in and enjoy every year. Although St Anne’s Well has physically changed, as has the town around it, it has remained a source of inspiration, enjoyment, and (most importantly) water for thousands of years. And long may it continue!