What do you get when you combine a quirk of nature (or is it magic?) and an enterprising English gent – Britain’s oldest visitor attraction better known as the Petrifying Well of Mother Shipton’s Cave.
For hundreds of years, people have been coming to see one of the strangest quirks of nature in England which can apparently turn any object to stone simply by letting water run over it. Leaves, branches and even animals were seen apparently turned to stone which for many hundreds of years meant the local townsfolk of Knaresborough kept well away from the water, fearing they too would be turned to stone.
By the early 1500s however, the fascination with “healing waters” had begun and by 1538 John Leyland, Antiquary to Henry VIII, noted that many would come to sample the waters as they were believed to have magical healing properties.
In 1630 the park containing the well was sold to Sir Charles Slingsby and realising how popular the waters were, he added an admission charge to visit the well, thus creating possibly the world’s first paid visitor attraction.
Today visitors can see various objects which have been donated to be petrified including teddy bears, handbag belonging to Agatha Christie, hat belonging to John Wayne and even a shoe from Queen Mary who visited the well in 1923.
As for the healing properties of the waters, we’ll leave that to other to work on…
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