• In 1653, Oliver St John, Cromwell’s Lord Chief Justice acquired the land in Longthorpe and began building Thorpe Hall in that year. It was built with stones from the cloisters of Peterborough.
• Between 1653-6, the Summer House was built.
• Between 1765-85 maps show a revitalisation of the area by the well.
• In 18th Century, a Longthorpe based Doctor A.J.Skrimshire, built the distillery outside the entrance to the grotto.
• In 1895, the writings by Bord and Bord, fuelled the myth that a tunnel from the Cave
• The late 18th Century maps show that the complex was divided into Upper and Lower Holy Well.
• During the mid 19th Century, the Summer House was demolished.
• By 1900, the site became deserted.
• In the 1960’s, it was used as a stock pond by the East Midland’s Fishery.
• In 1976, Francis O’Neill was requested by the Development Corporation to clarify the remains of the Grotto.
• In 1991, a length of wall as revealed at a number of points along its course as well as a series of gravel / ash paths and an in filled pond. These were found during a small training excavation with the aim of identifying garden features and possible water managements.
• In 1992, Ian Meadows of the Peterborough Museum excavated trial trenches. Traces of a medieval water management system were discovered, in the form of an earth dam, as well as the remains of 17th Century garden walls relating to the creation of a formal garden in this area for Thorpe Hall.
• The present day, the old Holy Well still exists and has become a well-known picnic spot. A clean up campaign has started.

Architecture:

The architect for the scheme is unknown and the drawings believed to be discarded, so little is known of the site or Holy Well itself. The area was designed on the grounds of Vauxhall gardens in London and from the pottery excavated it appears to belong to the late Saxon-early Mediaeval times.

The 'enclosure' was more than 10 acres and had 9 ponds, several elongated and rectangular arranged a central oval pond. They kept full by two banks or dams running South West to North East across the Centre and South East of the area. The gardens laid 260 yards South East of the Manor House on river gravel at about 25ft above OD.

4 ponds were the result of the overflow from the Holywell Spring (North of the Site), which was incorporated into a 17th/18th Century Grotto. The ponds were contemporary with Thorpe Hall and the 4 adjacent ponds to the spring where used as " Monk's Stew Ponds" or "Paradise" Ponds (ponds for the storing of caught fish, alive until required for cooking).

The 18th Century water garden, remodelled, consisted of a Grotto which was lit by an 'eye' directly over a circular well, into which the water was led rather than rose. The spring is surrounded by a large artificial mound 7ft high with a stone-lined shaft in the centre.

The grotto now collapsed constituted a medley of design and structure. The 'Subterranean Chambers' were not caves as they were apparently first built and then covered with a mound of earth. The walls and domed roofs consisted of undressed stone.

The 1st chamber (or ante-chamber), 10 feet by 8 feet, is mostly to the left and nearly at right angles to the passage. There is a stone dressed window and the rough stone roof cuts across it. On the opposite wall to the window is a doorway which opens to a very irregular shaped 2nd or main chamber, 20ft ling by 15ft at the widest part.

Within the doorway is a dressed stone curbed well, 3ft internal diameter, is another smaller circular opening lined with dressed stone.

On the right after entering the large chamber is an opening leading to a 3rd chamber, smaller (8/9ft by 12 ft). On one side of this is the opening, now blocked up, to the supposed underground passage to Peterborough Cathedral, by which the monks of the Abbey of Burgh is said to have to come to bathe in the pool.

The water ran under the floor of the Grotto and then fell into a small pond rectangular at one end and apsidal (domed roof) at the other. Around this smaller pond was a walkway with a seat along the sides and round the apse (semicircular part of the building). The stonework around the apse is Greek in style.

From here the water then ran along an open channel and down into a trough from which it splashed into a larger pond. It was then taken by a concealed exit into the rest of the pond complex.

The large pond had same similar shaping as the smaller pond, with a relieved apse at the far end of the pavilion and terrace, which gave access to the small pool and Grotto. A woodcut made in the middle of the last century, which shows the distillery, reveals that the pavilion has columns in a version of Greek Ionic.

The distribution of the water, the stone revetments (retaining walls) for the two ponds and the terrace all mark this scheme off from the rest of the pond complex. The whole forms a water garden of markedly classical cast, most probably enhanced by statuary and possibly mock-ruin fragments. A plinth that could have supported a statue is still on the site.

On the western side, close by one of the ponds, is a large house converted into 3 cottages, known as Holywell cottages.

The Summerhouse and the wall surrounding the pool was built of 'Barnack Rag', a coarse-grained oolite limestone and the supporting pillars were polished and therefore were made out of different stone. The Summerhouse was deliberately demolished because of the 'disorderly proceedings of visitors from Peterborough'.

A lot of the dressed stone of the steps and walls now constitute the kitchen floor of the adjacent Manor House.

The distillery building was adjacent to the spring. The distillery produced lavender and peppermint water (cultivated in adjacent fields), oil of caraway and other items such as Henbane and Belladonna extract (grown at Wansford). The late Mr. Holland of Market Deeping afterwards continued the trade. Watercress now grows in what remains of the distillery.

The site is bounded, except on the South West, by low banks, only 1 ½ ft high, and dry limestone walls up to 8ft high. A hollow-way 3ft deep approaches the site from the North West boundary bank.

Social history:

• In 1130's during Abbot Godfrey's tenure, records show that the Abbey was interested in the site.
• The documentary evidence referring to the Holy Well is scanty and only maps give an indication of the actual timings.
• The ponds at Longthorpe originally belonged to the medieval manor (no longer standing), which at one time was the property of the abbey.
• The form of the name Holy Well was Holwell in 1632.
• The complex of ponds and earthworks (surveyed in maps) show that they were not in existence before 1649.
• In 1720 as noted by J. Bridges that he was 'lying in the park at some distance from the house' and he says that the water rises in a 'rock' or a 'grotto'. Bridges refers to it as 'Halywell'.
• Holy well means 'the well in the hollow' and is included in Morton's list of Holy Wells.
• A hermitage was located a few yards from the spring and it was inhabited by St. Cloud. Some authorities, such as ArrowSmith, have identified this hermit as St Botolph, who is said to have lived within a mile of his chapel during its construction on the Thorpe Avenue site. He is associated with other wells, such as that at Hadstock, Essex, so it is not impossible.
• Doctor.A.J.Skrimshire who lived in Longthorpe, built a distillery outside the grotto because he thought the waters were spiritual and medicinal. It was thought to be efficacious for gout, rheumatism, and skin diseases and good for eyes.
• The waters of the well were in high repute. The Monks of Peterborough Abbey and many people who came on pilgrimages to Peterborough visited the grotto.
• After Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded at Fotheringay her funeral cortege is known to have stayed at Longthorpe while negotiations were carried out at the Cathedral to have her interned there.
• Locals still drink from the water from the spring. Some consider it to be still at Holy place that they have there ashes scattered there.
• The clean up campaign for the site has started, firstly by the Probation Service and then a Ranger was employed by the Council to look after it. The ponds have started to be cleaned but the high silt content has made some of them into bogs. It is predicted to take 3-4 years and will be followed by a rolling program of pond and tree maintenance.
• If the plans are successful, the site will become a local resort again and preserve something in the form of a classical garden.