Saints in Scottish Place-Names
Funded by a Leverhulme Trust Project Grant
Skeulan Well, Aboyne, Aboyne & Glentannar
Grid reference
NO 532 997 (accurate position)
Six-figure easting & northing
353200 799700
Latitude
57.086096768818344
Longitude
-2.7722659256203848
County
Aberdeenshire
Nearby places
Skeulan Tree, Aboyne - Aboyne & Glentannar (0 miles)
Aboyne, former parish, Aboyne & Glentannar (0.61 miles)
Lady Wood, Aboyne & Glentanar (1.36 miles)
St Machar's Well, Aboyne & Glentanar (1.8 miles)
Cathair Mochrieha, Aboyne and Glentanar (1.8 miles)
Object Classification
Water
Is linear feature?
No
Notes
Like Skeulan Tree, it is said to be dedicated to St Adomnan (a corruption of 'Eunan') (Mackinlay 1893, 43). While this may seem a rather severe mangling of the name, it is not completely implausible(Adomnán > Eunán, Eunán > Eulan, Sanct Eulan > Skeulan are not absolutely preposterous sound-changes), in addition to which we have the eighteenth-century testimony of Thomas Innes, whose Civil and Ecclesiastical History (1853) p. 301, says, ‘It will appear ... that I have insisted too long upon S. Adamnan; but ... the author of these memoirs, born in a parish anciently devoted to the memory of this holy man, and still preservaning a monument of him, well known to all the neighbourhood by the name of S. Eunan’s Well and S. Eunan’s Tree, thought it a duty to be at some more pains to illustrate his life and actions.’ NMRS records: 'Both tree and well were held in great veneration but the well was drained away by 1865, leaving no trace, and the tree, which had been a gigantic ash, said to be many centuries old, remained only as a badly decayed trunk.' Finally OS surveyors recorded no trace of the tree or the well in 1972.
Relationships with other parishes
Within Aboyne & Glentanar, parish
Within Aboyne, former parish, Aboyne & Glentannar (formerly)
Relationships with other places
Names
1 head-name linked to this place ?Skeulan Well
Head name
Skeulan Well
Place
Skeulan Well, Aboyne, Aboyne & Glentannar
Certainty that this name applies to this place
Certain
The status of this name is
Obsolete
Is this a current OS form? ?
No
Is this the original referent of the place?
Yes
Is the association of this name to this object hypothetical?
No
Skeulan Well 1914, MacKinlay 1914
Historic formSkeulan Well Head nameSkeulan Well PlaceSkeulan Well, Aboyne, Aboyne & Glentannar Certainty that this name applies to this placeCertain SourceMacKinlay 1914, 59 Notes on the context of this place-nameSometimes abbreviated ACDS:NS |
Source code
MacKinlay 1914
Author
J. M. MacKinlay
Source title
Ancient Church Dedications in Scotland: Non-scriptural
Year
1914
Notes
Sometimes abbreviated ACDS:NS