Wendreda

Perhaps a daughter of Anna, king of the East Angles, Wendreda may have grown up at Exning near Newmarket. Three of the daughters of Anna married kings, but, instead of marrying, Wendreda became a nun and a herbalist, expert in the arts of healing sick people and animals. She established herself in the wetlands of the Fens and according to one source founded a Benedictine nunnery at March, where she spent the rest of her life. She became famous as a healer, and eventually miraculous powers were attributed to her. Frances Egerton Arnold-Forster wrote in 1899 that Wendreda may have been an abbess, "for a little piece of ground opposite the church still retains its old name of 'the Nunnery'." She adds that an old coffin-lid was discovered there and moved to the churchyard and quotes the Rev. Charles E. Walker, Rector of March in 1890, as saying "It is evident that there was a small conventual establishment there, in all probability connected with S. Wendreda, but no trace of foundations or document can I discover." Agnes Dunbar said of Wendreda a few years later ==Relics, church, and well==

, Isle of Ely According to Joseph Strutt, "The body of St. Wendreda, a virgin, was brought by Esinus (abbot of Ely) to Ely, where it was laid in a rich shrine most superbly ornamented with gold and precious stones." The remains were kept in a golden shrine in Ely Abbey (now Ely Cathedral) until 1016, when Edmund Ironside bought them and carried them into battle, in the hope that they would bring him victory against the Danes. and this claim was repeated in 1905 by Agnes Dunbar. John Betjeman said of it that it was "worth cycling forty miles in a head wind to see", and Clive Fewins has called it "the finest of all angel roofs". A spring at Exning was named St Mindred's Well, and a local legend had it that the Saint used its water in her healing. Newmarket jockeys used to take horses there to drink before a race. Following on from this, the water source, which is in the private grounds of the Hamilton Stud, is now called St Wendreda's Well. ==Wider veneration==

Since the Middle Ages, Wendreda's status has increased, and her influence has travelled out widely from the local level. It was reported in 1998 that "As saint, Wendreda is now implicated in the networks of international Catholic power and policy. In a small way she has entered the political relations between Rome and Canterbury." ==See also==