I'm indebted to James Rattue for pointing out the existence of 'St Mary's Well' or 'Ladywell' in Burley Street in his excellent Some Wells in the South and West. It's not listed in Hope and knowledge of its existence outside the Burley area must be chiefly down to James's detective work. I'm a great fan of Burley but it does get very crowded, both with cyclists and with tourists visiting places with names like 'A Coven of Witches' (Sybil Leek's old house) or 'Sorcerer's Apprentice', which mostly seem to stock collectable figures. So, it's good to leave the bustle behind.
We often start at the Queen's Head (+44 (0)1425 403423), which is a pub with real quality food. There are a number of tea rooms, all good (the other two pubs, though nice, are essentially hotels with bars open to non-residents) but the Queen's Head is a good compromise that allows me to have a second drink whilst Sue has a cream tea. As with many areas of the Forest, the last part of the trip to the well may be muddy and churned up even in the height of a dry summer, so eat first, bring a spare pair of shoes or resign yourself to crossing the rather fine carpet in sock-soles.
The well is at SU 205 045 but without a GPS even the O.S. map or its streetmap.co.uk equivalent aren't particularly helpful here: it's up a footpath and the maps don't make it too clear where it leaves, so it's better to follow James's directions. From the pub, turn left then left again towards Burley Street. The turn you want is a right turn into Tyrell's Lane, which, heading north along the road is the turn immediately after Long Mead Rd. It's walkable from the pub, but although there's quite a lot of separate footpath, as with Elwell there's just this one stretch that's not for the faint-hearted so, sadly, if you have a car I suggest taking it.
After a few hundred yards, you pass a couple of houses on the right set well back, then approach a more obvious thatched cottage in a small clearing. This cottage is Ladywell, a decent confirmation that you're in the right area. The footpath is on the left opposite the cottage, heading downhill into the trees. If you've brought the car, the charitable and sensible thing to do is turn it and then park on the slightly wider part of the lane, opposite the houses.
Now proceed down the footpath and take in the tranquil scene. Put the bustle of Burley and its retail experience behind you and consider that parts of the Forest are largely unchanged since the Norman period. These trees are much younger but the path may have been here for hundreds of years. In a short distance, the path turns into a true sunken track: I was intending to count indicator species on the way back but as we'll see, it was not to be. The main floor of the path is churned up and on our two separate visits twenty years apart both James and I found it muddy, in my case even in a hot August, but after a while I worked out a trick. A small stream had, when Sue and I were there, washed some of the gravel clean and was only a quarter-inch deep. This made the going easy.
I'd almost begun to think that we'd missed the well when suddenly there it was, on the right hand side on a downslope. I guess you could miss it, because it's only about two feet across, but someone has placed bricks around it on the downslope side and there's a curved branch on the upslope. Not, perhaps, the most spectacular well we've visited but clearly loved and, situated where it is with the sunlight filtering through the trees, quite romantic. Although much, much smaller, it reminded me of the 'magic well' in Paimpont. The simplicity moved me deeply and I wished that I'd brought a flower or something.
Eventually we turned to leave and shortly thereafter the reason for the churned earth and the folly of leaving flowers were revealed. Up the track came a line of about a dozen cattle: as with ponies and pigs the Commoners have the right to let their animals roam free. Now for most of the year the Forest cattle are placid beasts, but they're still large - seeming even larger in the confined space - and I treat them with respect. We moved aside to let them past and whilst this is normally the sensible course it proved to be a mistake in this case. The first two, probably mother and daughter, passed us but then stopped. Unknowing, we were between the alpha female, third in line, and two of her charges. She wanted them to move on, they wouldn't go unless she passed us, which she clearly wasn't keen to do. During the stand-off, we watched as two mothers at the rear took their young calves to the well, and my wife commented that possibly more animals than humans know of the well's existence.
Eventually we gave up the unequal struggle and re-passed the first two, moving quickly back up the lane to give them space to calm themselves. We drove off to All Saints at Thorney Hill but the well there is capped and currently in the middle of a building site, so we decided to come back when the renovations are finished. Thorney was only a stop-off anyway, our destination being Bisterne, the place where the dragon that roosted on Burley Beacon made itself a nuisance. Sadly we found no dragon traces (if anyone knows anything, please mail me) and the views from the roads are obscured, so we'll need to plan a 'smuggler's trail' walk. We returned to Burley to visit the cider shop, to discover that the cattle had, in an hour and a half, made it up onto the main road between Burley Street and Burley. We're used to this, but there were a lot of very frustrated tourists heading into Burley very, very slowly. Adjusting to the pace of life is, for me, part of what the forest, including Ladywell, is about - the cream tea will still be there in half an hour; meanwhile, enjoy watching the world go by.