Survey of English Place-Names

Etymology

Dodswell's Well, the following forms are given in Finchampstead 16 ff. Well Dozells 1638, Doswells 1783, Dodswell 1871. The adjoining field is shown on the TAMap of 1841 as Well Dorsell 's Field . Lyon, writing in 1895, says that the well was accidentally destroyed about 1872, by deepening the ditch on the roadside. It is marked on the 2½″ map, however. The water is said to have had marvellous curative properties, especially for eye diseases, and Lyon suggests that the name was originally 'St Oswald's Well'. ASC E, s.a. 1098, 1100 and 1103, refers to blood bubbling out of a pool or out of the earth at Finchampstead, and there may be some connection with this well.For other references to the phenomenon, under the years 1029 and 1164, v. AnnMon iv371, 381.