Excerpt from The Legendary Lore of the Holy Wells of England, 1893. R.C.Hope
About half a mile from St. Austell there is an enclosed well of remarkably pure water, known as Menacuddle Well, i.e., maen-a-coedl, the hawk's stone; and also the remains of its little chapel or baptistry. The chapel is 11 feet long, 9 feet wide. There are north and south doorways, B B, 2 feet 9 inches wide, and 5 feet high, The spring rises on the east side, and the basin, A A, is divided by a stone bar. Its romantic situation moves us more [22]than any idea of the virtue of the water. It is also a wishing well. It lies in a vale at the foot of Menacuddle Grove, surrounded with romantic scenery, and covered with an ancient Gothic chapel, overgrown with ivy.
The virtues of these waters are very extraordinary, but the advantages to be derived from them are rather attributed to the sanctity of the fountain than to the natural excellence of its stream. Weak children have frequently been carried here to be bathed ; ulcers have also been washed in its sacred water, and people in season of sickness have been recommended by the neighbouring matrons to drink of this salubrious fluid. In most of these cases, instances may be procured of benefits received from the application, but the prevailing opinion is that the advantages enjoyed result rather from some mystical virtue attributed to the waters for ages past, than from the natural qualities. Within the memory of persons now living, this well was a place of general resort for the young and thoughtless. On approaching the margin, each visitor, if he hoped for good luck through life, was expected to throw a crooked pin into the water, and it was presumed that the other pins which had been deposited there by former devotees might be seen rising from their beds, to meet it before it reached the bottom, and though many have gazed with eager expectation, no one has yet been permitted to witness this extraordinary phenomenon.