St Ninian was one of the Celtic saints who brought Christianity to Scotland. His missionary work is associated with the south west of Scotland, and also with the village at the crossroads south of Stirling, to which he gave his name. St Ninian among other things, is the patron saint of prisoners. In Mediaeval manuscripts he was sometimes depicted holding a chain or handcuffs.
A large part of Stirling itself, the Wellgreen, also bears his name. The Wellgreen was common ground often used for washing and bleaching and at the centre of it was St Ninian's Well. A wash house was built by Stirling Burgh for the use of the inhabitants in 1737, and the ground floor of this survives – with St Ninian's Well still bubbling, clear and pure.
An old statistical account of Stirling states that “…. it has been calculated, that, were all the water proceeding from this spring forced into the pipes that supply the town, it would afford every individual not less than 14.03 gallons per twenty-four hours….”
The very cold water from the well has been found to contain muriate of lime and sulphate of lime (or plaster of Paris) which made it unsuitable for domestic purposes but it was in demand for brewing.
In the l9th Century, the water was used by St Ninian's Brewery, but before the Scottish Reformation the well was used for its healing properties. In the 17th Century, the Kirk Session of Stirling forbade the practice of resorting to wells for spiritual and curative purposes on the grounds that it was superstitious.
Stirling Burgh put forward plans for the development of Wellgreen as early as 1829 but there was public opposition to this. In July l870 the first Stirlingshire Highland Games were held on Wellgreen, with a crowd of 4000 in attendance.
By the l880's the area was being built upon and industrialised. In 1882 a representative from the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland visited, to measure and record St Ninian's Well, as there were fears of the site being redeveloped. Noxious trades such as tanning had been sited in the nearby Craigs area since the 18th century, and all spare land was subject to development.
In 1970 St Ninian’s Well was used for rearing Brown Trout. In 2001 Stirling Council reopened the Well as a fish hatchery. There were over 50,000 brown trout eggs being reared and once hatched were released into the Rivers Forth and Teith. In the Summer of 2011 an infestation of blue algae greatly reduced brood stock at Howietoun Hatchery and no eggs were available for stock purposes.
I, LizMar2010, am hoping to get this new series up and running nationally. So if you decide to lay one or more with this series, please let me know via ancientwellsl@yahoo.com so that I can issue a number and I will add them in a bookmark