Some of the books I'm aware of which cover the holy wells field. There are quite a lot of local and themed studies out there, so this list just contains what I think are the most useful ones for someone who's generally interested in wells.
The original holy wells compendium, a list of sites and their folklore from most of the English counties. It seems a little old-fashioned even for 1893, a real work of antiquarian enthusiasm which brings together stray details from books of local history, topography and folklore, newspapers, and even Hawkins's History of Music... Of course you can only find the original in libraries, but RA Kessinger Ltd do produce this reprint version. They run off each copy as it's requested, so it takes a while, and the lovely line-illustrations and old photos suffer quite a lot in the process. The finished result looks a bit floppy and flimsy, too! But at least it means this first holy wells book of all is available to modern 'well-ies'.
A comprehensive account of the folklore of wells and water in the British Isles. By the 1980s there was quite a body of information about wells, scattered around in various local studies and books of folklore as well as Hope's book. For the first time, the Bords brought it all together in a coherent account which examined various themes in well-worship - healing, ghosts, saints, the connection between wells and other ancient sites, and so on. The book has lots of good illustrations, too, and is very readable. It's probably the best place to start for the general reader - though it may well not be easy to track down these days.
And then I turned up! After a long while being interested in wells, I became dissatisfied with a great deal of what was available to read about them and so wrote this, which was intended to a) provide a history of the revering of wells, how it had developed over time, rather than a collection of folklore, and b) focus on England rather than the Celtic nations which seemed to me to have received most of the attention up till then. It turned out to be a bit polemic and were I writing it again I'd tone down some parts, but I think the argument stands up and has been pretty well accepted by most researchers in the field. I like to think Living Stream is easy for the general reader to understand, but it's still basically an academic book, and the only illustrations are a few maps. Note that you can't buy it from me! You'll have to contact the publishers, Boydell & Brewer, or find it through a bookseller.
This is a lovely small book, part of the Wooden Books series about ancient and numinous sites. Christina covers twenty-or-so wells throughout Britain, and illustrates them with her evocative drawings. Many more wells are mentioned through the text. Very friendly and beautiful to read through.
I'm not an enormous fan of Capall Bann and its output about earth-mysteries and allied subjects, but Edna Whelan's book is a useful short account of holy wells, even if it's a bit old-fashioned in its approach to them. Most of the examples are drawn from Yorkshire and show how one area can illustrate the whole variety of holy and other wells. You get the benefit of Edna's lovely drawings - albeit not done justice by the reproduction.
Although like Edna Whelan's this is a regional well-study, it warrants a look because it's completely different from every other holy well book. It's a beautifully produced, wonderfully composed collection of photographs illustrating about thirty Irish holy wells and the pilgrimages and customs surrounding them. Glorious, and a moving depiction of quiet piety and ordinary people.
I'm treating these two books together because they really are companion volumes. Janet & Colin Bord's Sacred Waters looked at the folklore of holy wells and finished with a gazzetteer of sites; a generation
At last! Jeremy Harte's colossal work of research, investigating every Christianised holy well in England (excluding Cornwall) significantly rewrites the story. For the first time, he establishes exactly what we know securely about English wells, and from that sound basis proceeds to develop a new chronology of the development of the well-cult between the conversion of Britain and the Reformation. It's difficult to overstate what a fantastic contribution this makes to the study of holy wells - and it's engagingly written and accessible, too, wearing its enormous learning very lightly. Cannot be highly enough recommended.