Detail of pillar showing the profile of the carved stone head well mouth, and with the mason's mark visible.

Description Detail of pillar showing the profile of the carved stone head well mouth, and with the mason's mark visible.

Date 11/1968

Catalogue Number ED 2640

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 572483

Scope and Content Detail of the central pillar, the interior of St Margaret's Well (formerly Restalrig Well), Holyrood Park, Edinburgh St Margaret's Well lies at the foot of Arthur's Seat, set into a grassy bank at the foot of the hill. This late medieval well-house was moved to Holyrood Park from Restalrig in 1855, and rebuilt over an existing spring known as St David's. This round pillar, with the stonemason's mark clearly visible on the right-hand side, rises from the centre of the cistern to support a rib-vaulted ceiling. The well water escapes through a spout in the mouth of a grotesque mask. The well-house, at its original site on the old road from Abbeyhill to Restalrig, may have been, in the late Middle Ages, a place of pilgrimage by the blind who, following the cult of St Triduana, sought a cure to 'mend their ene' in its special waters. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Accession Number 1977/2

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