Origins of The Name
According to the information panel erected at the cave by Waverley Borough Council the name Ludwell can be traced back to the Celtic language, and means "bubbling spring". John Aubrey visited the area in 1673 and was informed that Ludwell was named after Lud, King of the South Saxons, who went there to bathe his wounds after a battle. In a tradition originating with the Norman-Welsh writer of historicised legend Geoffrey of Monmouth, Ludd (or Llud) was the ruler of Celtic Britain and founder of London. A modern ethnographer would identify Lud as a Celtic god: a temple dedicated to him once stood in London near Ludgate, which is named after him, as are numerous toponyms in England and a very few in Ireland. He is also known as the Celtic god of healing which may indicate that the spring which rises in the cave was a holy well or sacred spring long before the monks of nearby Waverley Abbey used it as a source of fresh water and rededicated it to St Mary. The "Lud" element of the name is maintained in the more recent connection with "Mother Ludlam".
Read more about this topic: Mother Ludlam's Cave
Famous quotes containing the words the name, origins of and/or origins:
“The name of the town isn’t important. It’s the one that’s just twenty-eight minutes from the big city. Twenty-three if you catch the morning express. It’s on a river and it’s got houses and stores and churches. And a main street. Nothing fancy like Broadway or Market, just plain Broadway. Drug, dry good, shoes. Those horrible little chain stores that breed like rabbits.”
—Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909–1993)
“The origins of clothing are not practical. They are mystical and erotic. The primitive man in the wolf-pelt was not keeping dry; he was saying: “Look what I killed. Aren’t I the best?””
—Katharine Hamnett (b. 1948)
“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)