석정보름우물

History & origins

Seokjeong Boreum Well is thought to date from around the middle Joseon period and was long part of everyday life in Bukchon. It is regarded as one of the oldest surviving wells in central Seoul outside the royal palaces and Jongmyo, and residents of Gahoe-dong and Gyedong used it as drinking water for generations. Traditions explain its name by saying that the water appeared clear for half of the month and cloudy for the other half, and the quality of the water was said to be high enough for it to be taken to the royal palace. This everyday history shows that the well was already closely connected with the life of the neighborhood before it acquired a specific place in Catholic memory.

Its connection with Catholicism comes from traditions surrounding the missionary work of Fr. James Zhou Wen-mo in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Zhou was the first foreign missionary to enter the Korean Catholic Church and, while hiding from persecution in the homes of Catholics around Gyedong, continued celebrating Mass and administering the sacraments. The Archdiocese of Seoul pilgrimage route states that he is believed to have used water from Seokjeong Boreum Well for baptisms while staying at the home of Matthias Choe In-gil. Another tradition says that the water suddenly became bitter after many Catholics were martyred and was left unused for a time. This latter story is best distinguished as a devotional tradition preserved by the community rather than treated as an independently verified historical event.

With the spread of modern municipal water systems and changes in the neighborhood, the well ceased to function as an everyday source of drinking water, but its memory within the history of early Korean Catholicism remained. The Korean Catholic Directory now classifies Seokjeong Boreum Well as an official historical site of the Archdiocese of Seoul, and it is included in the “Way of the Word” on the Seoul Pilgrimage Route. The site therefore continues as a place where the urban heritage of Joseon, traditions of Fr. Zhou’s hidden mission, and the contemporary Church’s practice of pilgrimage overlap.