A 95-YEAR-OLD Leominster historian has illuminated a corner of Herefordshire where two forgotten saints once cured the sick.

According to Norman Reeves, doctors gathered at ancient Stretford Church every year on the feast day of St Cosmas and St Damian to celebrate the memory of their patron saints.

The tradition continued until 1970, when the tiny church was made redundant.

The brothers were renowned for their healing skills, but were put to death by the Romans for practising Christianity and refusing to pay divine honour to the emperor. During the middle ages, they became patrons of medicine. Stretford Church is one of only five in Britain dedicated to them.

Medieval pilgrims travelled to Stretford, near Ivington, in search of a cure for ailments 'hard life had brought'. As late as 1912, it was reported that the well below the church, also dedicated to the saints, had been visited by sufferers from eye complaints.

Mr Reeves, who wrote 'The Town in the Marches', a history of Leominster, and 'The Leon Valley', a study of three villages in north Herefordshire, believes the church stands on the site of a spring worshipped by the Celts. A subsequent Roman shrine was dedicated to St Cosmas and St Damian after the empire was converted to Christianity.

'The Cult of the Saints Cosmas and Damian' is available from local bookshops, price £3.50.