Reminder of city's medieval history

ON a Liverpool street is a mysterious medieval relic hiding in plain sight.

- By REBECCA MCGRATH

Just a stone's throw away from the Picton Clock in Wavertree, Monk's Well, a Grade II listed holy well, can be found standing outside two semidetached houses on the corner of North Drive and Mill Lane.

The well was constructed in 1414 and is believed to have been used by medieval monks and travellers.

Professor Martin Heale, professor of late medieval and reformation history at the University of Liverpool, told the ECHO the usage of the well still remains uncertain.

He said: "Holy wells were not uncommon in medieval Britain and Ireland. They were places where you might go on pilgrimage for healing or hope, in an age when doctors were expensive and often ineffective. We do not know whether the Wavertree well was ever a major place of pilgrimage: the most popular sites were accompanied by well chapels, as at Holywell in Flintshire, whereas the Wavertree well seems only to have been surmounted by the medieval sandstone arch which survives."