Ane breif descriptioun of the qualiteis and effectis of the Well of the Woman Hill besyde Abirdene anno Do. 1580 : a facsimile in photo-lithography / with an introduction by A.K.

  • Gilbert Skeyne
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ane breif descriptioun of the qualiteis and effectis of the Well of the Woman Hill besyde Abirdene anno Do. 1580 : a facsimile in photo-lithography / with an introduction by A.K. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    town, running along close behind the Well. The whole surroundings of the Well are changed ; and it is now in the heart of a densely populated portion of the city. It was otherwise in 1580. Then 'the most con- siderable pairt of the citie' stood upon three hills, the Gallowgate-hill, the Castle-hill, and St. Katharine's-hill, and did not extend westward beyond the Great Kirk, on the site of the present East and West Churches. A little to the north-west of the Great Kirk stood the Grammar School, and to the west of the Grammar School the Convent of the Blackfriars, whose ' circuit in all took up all that parcell of ground that lyeth betuixt the Grammar Schooll and the Woolmanhill, evne to the edge of the loch,' and westward from the Convent extended the ' litle green swelling hill,' at the foot of the western slope of which rose the spring now called the Well of Spa. The name ' Well of Spa' seems to have been first given to the spring at some period between the date of Barclay's Tract, 1615, and that of Gordon's Description, 1661. In the latter we first find that name applied to it. In the'Tract now reprinted it is called 'The Well of the Woman-hill besyde Abirdene,' and ' Ane Fontaine ... at Abirdene,' and Barclay calls it 'Callirhoe,' 'The Nymph of Aberdene,' 'the medicinal water, which not only orneth the Towne of Aberdene, but blesseth the territorie about it with a treasure of health, more worth than the wealth of Croesus,' 'The
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