The story of Struell Wells
Struell is an early Christian site, likely older than the year 1000, and it carries strong associations with St Patrick, though the tradition holds that the wells themselves predate him. The earliest written reference comes in 1306, when a chapel was recorded on the spot. None of the buildings you see today is older than about 1600, so the surviving structures belong to the great age of the site as a place of pilgrimage rather than its origins.
From the 16th century onward the wells drew crowds who believed the cold spring water could heal. Pilgrims came in numbers on Midsummer Eve, St John's Eve, and the Friday before Lammas, immersing themselves in the bath houses, one set aside for men and one for women, and taking the waters at the drinking well and the eye well. The site was a major focus of devotion in the Downpatrick area, with hundreds gathering on the big nights.
The mid-18th-century church above the wells was begun but apparently never completed, raised on or near the footprint of much earlier religious buildings. Pilgrimage continued strongly until the 1840s, when rowdy behaviour at the gatherings led church authorities to discourage and eventually prohibit the devotions, and the site grew quieter.
Today Struell Wells is cared for by the Department for Communities as a state monument. The church stands roofless, the two bath houses and the two covered wells survive along the stream, and the whole complex is open to the public, free of charge, in its valley off the Ardglass Road.