MENACUDDLE
Many local historians have attempted to decipher the meaning of this place-name but lack of records leaves it to conjecture. Some have noted a link with the Cornish for stone (maen), so for A.L.Rowse it signifies “the stone or rock wall”. If there were granite cliffs before the turnpike road was built in the 1840’s like the opposite side of the valley then this conclusion makes a lot of sense. Others have suggested it is a corruption of a saint’s name – St Guidel. In 1725 a French historian, Guillame Lobineau, wrote biographies of early Breton saints, including our own Saints Méen and Austole. St Meen, a close friend & colleague of St Austole, was a renowned healer so it seems, therefore, entirely appropriate that the name should have been adapted for the healing well to the north of St Austell Méen and Austole. The 1902 Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall suggested a derivation from Méen and Cuddigle: the cell or retreat of Méen.
The Vinnick (Cornish Dowr an Wynyk: White River) perhaps did not supply the best drinking water, so the community of Trenans would have been grateful for the many springs that flowed from the granite either side of the river valley to the north. In the late nineteenth century its quality was recognised by Walter Hicks and, pumped over the hill, it still supplies St Austell Brewery.
THE WELL
For pre-Christian communities, wells and springs often became endowed with magical qualities and became the focus for rites and rituals and were frequently considered to have healing properties.How to counteract these pagan superstitions was a concern of the medieval church authorities. After St Augustine it was easy to turn a healing spring and its rituals into a place of Christian baptism although, of course, superstitions persisted.
So, at some point a decision was made by the church authorities to erect a gothic well-house over the spring basin. This was possibly carried out by the monks of Tywardreath Priory after they had inherited the patronage from its original donor, Philip of St Austell.
Few records were kept in those days but there is the claim by a traveller in the time of Henry VIII that Menacuddle was home to a holy man or hermit.
THE GARDENS
Charles Rashleigh was the person who did have a major impact on Menacuddle Well. He was a younger son of the Rashleighs of Menabilly. He is best known for developing the “poor fishing village” of Porthmear into Charlestown, the port that bears his name. At Duporth he built a fine country house and fortified Charlestown with a gun battery served by his own private militia. In St Austell he founded a bank and what is now The White Hartbecame his town house.