Once a star religious attraction drawing pilgrims from far and wide, Old Linslade’s popular medieval Holy Well on the Beds/Bucks border was forced to close in 1299 by the Bishop of Lincoln, angered by the local vicar’s rash claims of the water’s miraculous medicinal properties (and the income it was generating!). Lost for the next 700 years, and thought to have been buried under the Grand Union Canal, local community archaeologists recently embarked on a three-year excavation to rediscover its precise location. After lots of human effort, and the help of insights and analysis from LIDAR and geophysics resistivity technologies, the team have now successfully identified the original site of the sacred spring itself, uncovered a later 18th century cottage built shortly before the canal's construction, revealed a host of 13th and 14th century finds showing extensive medieval activity across the canal-side meadow, and discovered much earlier evidence of habitation stretching back to Romano-British and even Mesolithic occupation over 8,000 years ago.

The speakers will be Paul Tate, Old Linslade Holy Well Project Director, Head of Archaeology, LBDAHS; and, Andy McGrandle, Geophysicist, Director, Big Anomaly Ltd.

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