Most holy wells in Ireland are modest affairs, a spring in a field perhaps marked by rags tied to a nearby branch or a small cairn of stones. The Lady's Well at Cowanstown in County Kildare is something rather more deliberate: a deep, circular shaft nearly two metres down, lined with coursed and well-dressed stonework, with steps cut to lead the visitor down to the water itself. It sits just two metres east of the east gable of a ruined church the local people have long called the Lady's Chapel, the whole arrangement contained within a graveyard and enclosed by a low modern wall with a piered gate.

The pairing of a Marian well with a Marian chapel is a familiar pattern in the Irish landscape, where dedications to Our Lady often settled onto sites that were sacred long before Christianity gave them their present name. What makes this example notable is the quality of the well's construction. The term "coursed, well-dressed stones" points to deliberate craft, the kind of careful stonework that suggests the well was considered an important structure rather than a purely functional one. A plaque beside the gate records a restoration that began in 1989, meaning the fabric visitors see today reflects relatively recent care, even if the well and its association with the ruined chapel beside it are considerably older. The ruin itself is recorded separately, though the two sit so close together that it is difficult to read one without the other.