Welcome to Glasgow’s Wellspring 

Hidden deep within the Crypt of Glasgow Cathedral lies one of the city’s oldest treasures – St Mungo’s Well, an ancient site, once at the heart of both pagan and Christian ritual - now managed by Historic Environment Scotland.

This historic well was built into the original buttress walls of the Cathedral when the lower church was expanded to become a great pilgrimage centre in the mid-13th century with thousands of believers visiting every year.

This is the very oldest part of the city. There has been a Christian burial ground here even before Kentigern (St Mungo) arrived and centuries before the Cathedral was built.

In 540 AD, imagine a well, a real well. No cathedral, no Glasgow, just a natural well in a quiet meadow, maybe some oak trees.

There’s a forest clearing. The steep-sided hill above you is covered in fir trees, there’s grass sloping down to the Molendinar Burn. A young monk wanders into a hut nearby, he has just completed a baptism in the water below. 

His name is Kentigern. He is said to be very devout.

Kentigern lives for nearly a hundred years. Word spreads about him. Centuries on the Pope is informed in writing, about the Saint’s life and a myriad of miracles. Cathures, as Glasgow was then named, becomes a ‘Special Daughter’ of Rome and work starts in earnest on raising a Cathedral. It is built by that beautiful well.

The monk’s humble hut, now a Saint’s tomb, becomes a village becoming a town becoming Glasgow; the well disappearing into legend, but still here, now cast deep inside the wall.

This is truly a wellspring and Glasgow’s birthplace, fed by rainwater running from invisible streams under the building. After the Protestant Reformation, ordinary people were banned from visiting wells, which had long been associated with healing and personal blessing. The well fell into disuse and was gradually forgotten… until now. 

So you are welcome to Glasgow’s wellspring; a place of reflection and connection. We invite you to make a wish, spare a thought for someone or for a peaceful world; whoever you are, wherever you are from.

The Well Mosaic

This beautiful artwork has been created by the Aproxima Collective, an arts charity from Glasgow.

Artist Joanna Kessel had this to say…

Glasgow Wellspring Mosaic comprises just under one thousand 24k gold leaf glass plates handmade by Orsoni in Venice.  The blue-green glass forms the backs of the gold leaf plates (the fronts are traditionally yellow gold) and were selected for their specific colours referencing the sky above, light filtering through tree leaves casting dappled light on the water’s surface and taking our eye down below the surface to the unseen depths.

The artist was informed by the magnificent luminosity of ancient mosaics in Byzantine Basilicas as well as more contemporary use of gold leaf mosaic plates used by the Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa.  

The Wellspring is a celebration of water, light, history, time and place. 

The well before excavation.