EAST Lancashire's treacle mines - at Sabden and Tockholes - are the topic of laughable legends in our region's folklore, but did you know that they are real?

No, this has nothing to do with the old nonsense tales about the ones at Tockholes being opened by the Romans and Julius Caesar's thumbprint being found there, or about those at Sabden supplying the treacle which handloom weavers used as weft when, with oatmeal as the warp, they wove parkin, or of the village's treacle being used to make flypaper.

For, in the anthology of selected writings published recently by the Lancashire Authors' Association to mark its 90th anniversary, comes the disclosure by ex-Blackburnian, retired pathologist Nick Howorth, that those mines are in fact mythical memories of "treacle wells" that were real and which dated from the 14th and 15th centuries.

For "treacle wells," says Mr Howorth, who now lives at Carlisle, were the alternative name for ancient holy wells many of which still survive around the country - such as the oldest still in existence, at St Margaret's Church at Binsley, near Oxford, which is associated with St Frideswide, who was born in 726 and was believed to cure leprosy, epilepsy and other diseases with water from the well.

Nearer home, a holy well on what was once moorland then just outside Bolton gave Halliwell its name and, marked by a plaque, on this newspaper's head-office premises in Blackburn is the site of All Hallows Well, a place to which pilgrims came in the Middle Ages for the curative properties of its waters - in particular, for bad eyes.

But why should holy wells have once also been known as "treacle wells"? The word "treacle," Nick explains, originated from the Latin "theriaca," meaning an antidote or medicinal compound, and was anglicised into "triacle" in Middle English, which was formed between 1150 and 1500. Thus, it is likely that the term "triacle or treacle wells" dates from around this time. "Nowadays," adds Nick, "people have forgotten what treacle wells were but the ancient memory has survived as "treacle mine," as at Sadben and Tockholes."

The famous holy well that lies behind the tales of the Tockholes "mine" is the one in the grounds of ruined Hollinshead Hall in the village and though it is not known how long the well has been there, the site was first occupied during the time of Edward I who reigned from 1271 to 1302.

Of it, Blackburn historian William Abram wrote in 1877: "In the garden is an antique well, enclosing a spring of water of curative properties to which, of yore, the name of 'Holy Well' was given."

The "treacle wells" at Sabden, Nick explains, are actually under the Wellsprings Hotel near the Nick o' Pendle, with water from them being used to supply the pub.

And, he believes, there was another "treacle well" at Mile End Row, off Revidge Road in Blackburn. "Mile End used to be called 'Treacle Row' by the locals and led to a well-field.

"In the 1940s, a ruined well-house stood in the field but the site was covered by garages," he adds. "Oral tradition has kept the topic of 'treacle' alive in Blackburn for 500 years, although 'treacle wells' has metamorphosed into 'treacle mines' in modern times."

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