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Photo: MotherShiptons, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Ursula Southeil or "Mother Shipton" (1488-1561) lived here and made various scary prophecies. Much of what's attributed to her is later invention, especially the famous prophecy "The world to an end shall come, in eighteen hundred and eighty-one." This was written in 1862, and later amended to "1981" when cosmic events failed to oblige; there's probably a 2031 version coming soon. Her supposed birthplace, the cave of the Petrifying Well, is a mix of creepy and tacky. Reached by a 20 minute riverside walk through the woods, it's a rock overhang with a continual drip of lime-rich water from above. The limestone solidifies, as if building a stalactite, so any object left here for a few months becomes stone. A whole tourist trade has built up around this: teddy bears and similar soft toys are popular sacrificial objects, what's that really all about?
Mother Shipton's Cave is at Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, England, near the River Nidd. Nearby is a petrifying well, also known as a dropping well. The latter is the oldest tourist attraction to charge a fee in England, and has been operated since 1630. The water of the well is so rich in sulphate and carbonate that artefacts may be put in the well to be "petrified" (encrusted) as a tourist attraction.
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