The St Nicholas Hospital was founded just outside Canterbury in 1084, and was probably the first of its kind in England, a place where people with leprosy (now called Hansen’s disease) could live together on the edges of society, in an almost monastic fashion. They paid their way by begging and saying prayers for the souls of their benefactors. The choice of location is similar to other leper hospitals, which were often on crossroads outside major cities, but there may have been another factor here: a natural spring, thought to have healing properties.

It is not entirely clear whether the sprint came first and the hospital followed, or whether the spring was co-opted by the hospital to enhance its offer. Either way, it was renowned as a place to cure leprous ailments, and when Edward of Woodstock, the heir to the throne, visited the well and was cured of his leprosy, its reputation grew. Edward drank the waters again in 1376 on his deathbed- reputedly to cure syphilis this time – but to no avail. Nevertheless, the well took on his sobriquet and is now the Black Prince Well.

Healing wells are scattered across the English landscape in surprising abundance – the historian James Rattue lists over two hundred in my native county of Kent alone. The vast majority, though, are forgotten. Abandoned, overgrown, covered up, or derelict, they lie invisible in the landscape, slowly seeping out centuries of ritual significance. The Black Prince Well is barely known among the locals, but it is at least still maintained. It now finds itself at the edge of a complex of retirement homes, the grass around it carefully mowed. Elsewhere, it would receive a steady stream of visitors. Here in Canterbury, we have enough medieval grandeur to be complacent.” – Katherine May, Enchantment.

The author goes on to describe discovering it out on a pilgrimage led by her friend, Clare, who “pushes back the boughs to reveal an arch of grey limestone whose worn keystone is carved with the three-feathered insignia of the Black Prince.

”It is an extraordinary sight, this place where people have come across the ages in the hope of healing. Its surround is worn like pumice, with the carved centerpieces fitted haphazardly, as though borrowed from somewhere else. It has the air of a place that has waited patiently for a long time for someone to come along and worship, and now it has me standing awkwardly before it, at a loss. It cracked with magic? But I have no template for how to behave around it, no tradition or culture that prepared me for this. There was once a chain of understanding that stretched across generations, but that was broken long ago, all I have inherited is the forgetting.”

I have walked over landscapes that have power to them. Some spots call, some spots defend. It is all frequency. I have squatted near small grassy hills, inhaling the song of the land that is at once not mine and mine as well. We all belong to the land yet we don’t all belong to all places.

I picked up Enchantment among a piles of books, as I do. Sitting back in the armchair, resting after a particularly busy spate of activity at work, I am resting. I am resting away from a world that feels like has notched up. The pace, people’s anger, frustration, and disgust. The click-bait titles triggering nervous systems that remain on high alert, cortisol coursing through and disturbing natural rhythms and regeneration.

This is time to be re-enchanted. Because the world is beautiful and people in general are loving and kind. Manipulated by skewed media and divisive posturing, we get pulled apart when we can do with more gathering.