page_title: Brislington Brook
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Brislington Brook / History
caption_attribution_description: St. Anne's Well, Brislington, Bristol
context_page_description: Brislington Brook is a short, 5 miles long tributary of the Bristol Avon, rising on the northern slopes of Maes Knoll on the southern boundary of the city of Bristol, England. The stream has been badly affected by pollution but improvements have been made in the latter part of the twentieth century, and some wildlife is supported. St Anne's Well near the northern end of the brook was a major pilgrimage site for Christians in the Middle Ages.
context_section_description: St Anne's Spring was in medieval times a site of pilgrimage to venerate Saint Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary. A ferry from the northern (Gloucestershire) bank, which conveyed pilgrims across the Avon, was recorded in the Domesday Book in 1087. In 1485, Henry VII visited St Anne in the Wood, a chapel erected nearby, possibly by the Barons de la Warr who held Brislington Manor. The chapel was described by William Worcester, the noted fifteenth-century chronicler, as being 19 yards (17 m) long and 5 yards (4.6 m) wide, and containing a number of giant wax candles, some 80 feet (24 m) high, which had been donated by some of the city guilds. John Latimer, in his book Sixteenth Century Bristol, considered the height of the candles to have been exaggerated. The site was described by the early Protestant reformer Hugh Latimer "as being no less famous for pilgrimage than the shrine at Walsingham." After the Dissolution of the Monasteries the chapel was pulled down and the lands let to local gentry.
caption: St Anne's well, Brislington, Bristol
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