Holy water

	An ancient holy well in Wales, now being restored

Humans need water – it is part of us and it gives us life. So it is not surprising that all cultures and religions have ceremonies that involve water – washing with it, drinking it, pouring it, thanking its deities or sprinkling it on children’s foreheads.

Sacred Land includes an element of Sacred Water – whether this involves rivers, holy wells, coastal marshlands or seas.

• Sacred wells have been rediscovered and repaired throughout North Cornwall. Find out more>

• Throughout Britain, fishing communities are struggling – because of over-fishing and tough measures to combat it many people are losing their livelihoods. Sacred Seas is a new initiative to work through the churches to help those communities.

• One of the most famous medieval wells of England – the Lady Mary Well – is found on a hill in Shropshire on the Welsh Borders. In the 1200s it had almost as many pilgrim visitors as Canterbury. In the 1990s the farmer who owned the land destroyed it. Sacred Land is working with the local community first to get the site officially recognised – and then to implement a conservation plan.