"St. Mary's Well. A remarkable spring that rises only a few yards from the River Rother, yet it is completely separate. It has never failed in living memory. It has no known history, an unsupported idea from the Victorian era designates the spring as a 'Holy Well' visited by mediæval pilgrims. The spring flows into a stone basin contained in a modern brick wall."

...thus spake the search engine on the HantsWeb "Hampshire Treasures" site about St Mary's Well at Steep.

It sounded delightful, and since it was a nice night and I was heading roughly there anyway, a good place to start my fieldwork - the journey of a thousand miles and all that. A quick check on multimap before leaving work suggested the site was in parkland about a mile from the railway station on foot, so a brief attempt to find and photograph it appeared in order. My aim, of course, is to find and photograph all the ones on my summary list that turn out to be real wells.

Multimap had it right. I walked out through town, along some worryingly main roads, to a picturesqe village now thankfully bypassed by the A272. It was a warm night, but I passed the Queen's Head with only a little remorse. The walk was at least easier than finding the Holy Well at Holwell, and I was looking forward to...

But sadly, although I found the river, which is beautifully tranquil amidst all the bustle, the site of the well is on private land. So, I can only bring you the top photograph of the setting. The well is... out there, somewhere. The journey of a thousand miles, apparently, often starts by walking in the wrong direction.