Lockwood Spa Baths

Before researching this post, I’d never heard of Lockwood Spa Baths. As part of Local and Community History Month in the UK, I have since learned that not 4 miles from me exists a natural spring that was used in the early 19^th century to create a luxury spa facility with the aim of transforming Lockwood into a health and leisure destination to rival that of Buxton and Harrogate.

Taking the waters

Humans have been using mineral water springs for bathing and therapeutic purposes for centuries. The Romans built Aquae Sulis around a natural hot spring as a sanctuary of rest and relaxation circa 860 BCE. That town later become known as Bath. Where natural springs occurred, locals were aware of the therapeutic benefits of drinking and bathing in the mineral-rich waters.

From the early 17^th century, physicians recommended the medicinal properties of mineral waters to cure every ailment from lung conditions to gout. The practice of “taking the waters” transformed into a recreational activity with spa towns like Bath, Harrogate, Buxton and Tunbridge Wells becoming popular destinations. As a result, the spa towns became centres for social gatherings, amusements and entertainments. The practice received royal assent when George III stayed in Cheltenham as part of the treatment for his mental health in 1788.

Horse Bank Spring

It seems that I’ve been travelling past a natural spring almost every day without knowing it. Horse Bank Spring is a natural chalybeate spring with a high iron and sulphuric content. The source is still listed as an everlasting spring in Lockwood.

Lockwood Brewery

In 1795, Timothy Bentley, son of Joseph Bentley of Halifax, began brewing beer in Lockwood. He built his brewery on the site of the Horse Bank Spring because of the quality of its natural water. Lockwood Brewery remained in business for 167 years (changing its name to the Bentley Shaw Brewery at some point), but the site now houses various health and recreational facilities.

It wasn’t until 30 years after Lockwood Brewery started brewing that local businessmen took advantage of the medicinal benefits of the spring and decided to build a luxury bathing facility to attract visitors from across the county.

Building the spa

Lockwood today is a busy, built-up suburb of Huddersfield. It’s difficult to imagine it as a luxurious spa retreat. However, at the beginning of the 1800s, Lockwood (originally known as Lower Crosland) was a rural idyl in the Holme Valley.

On 1^st March 1826, a group of entrepreneurs obtained the lease of Lower Spa Field from the Crosland family estate for the “full, free uninterrupted use of taking and using all mineral and sulphurous spring and springs of water arising and flowing within or under the said ground.” (Quoted in Dreams of Spa – The Huddersfield Examiner, 1974.)

John Oates, an architect from Halifax, designed the facilities in the classical style featuring a columned Tuscan porch. Ornamental gardens with wide lawns and flowerbeds surrounded the main building, and featured a bandstand and museum where the patrons could relax after the enjoying the baths. A bridge was built across the River Holme, so the guests could walk in the local woods as part of their stay.

About a mile on the Sheffield road, beautifully situated on the left bank of the river Holme, are the Lockwood Spa Baths, a neat one-story building in the Grecian style. When viewed from the road, or the high ground above, it presents a very pleasing aspect, embosomed in the trees of the spacious garden which surrounds it, and backed by the craggy and precipitous steep of Spa wood, on the opposite bank of the river.

Huddersfield: Its History and Natural History (1859) by Charles P. Hobkirk

On 1^st May 1827. Lockwood Spa Baths opened and offered warm, cold, vapour and shower baths plus use of a large swimming bath.

Spa town potential

At first, the luxury vibe of the spa attracted a wealthy clientele, and hotels and guest houses were built specifically to accommodate and feed the spa’s patrons. The Bath Hotel was built around 1829 at the end of the tree-lined drive through the ornamental gardens. Still standing today on Lockwood Road and looking down Bath Street to what remains of the spa building, the hotel was a licensed inn until 1952. The lower floor is not in use, but the upper floors are now domestic flats (apartments).

In 1828, you could enjoy the swimming bath for 6 pence, a Buxton bath at 86ºF for 1 shilling and 6 pence, and a vapour bath for 3 shillings and 6 pence.

In time, the spa attracted a wider range of clients, and in the 1830s one could also enjoy “the Indian mode of shampooing, which found so delightfully refreshing” (The Yorkshire Gazette, 24^th May 1834.) that Indian entrepreneur, Dean Mahomed, had popularised.

The water is highly esteemed for its medicinal virtues, and it is particularly limpid and sparkling. Its smell and taste are strongly sulphureous… The baths are neatly fitted up with every convenience and comfort, and are abundantly supplied with the spa-water, pumped from the spring by a steam engine. Besides a swimming bath, 13 yards long, 4 yards broad, and 4 feet 6 inches deep, here are separate cold, tepid, warm, vapour, and shower baths. They are within a few minutes walk from Huddersfield, and occupy a finely sequestered spot, sheltered by a lofty ridge on the east side of the river, covered with wood.

Whites Directory, (1837)

Newspaper articles in the late 1850s suggested that the 1^st Sunday in May became locally known as ‘Spa Sunday’ and it was a local tradition to partake of the waters on that day.

At the height of its popularity, Lockwood Spa Baths attracted over 30,000 bathers over the summer season and even attracted visitors from across the globe.

In the southern part of the town are the Lockwood Spa Baths. These are a great resort in the warm season for bathing. The water is strongly impregnated with chloride of sodium, sulphate of soda, and carbonate of lime.

The Rev. D. M. Crane of Greenfield, Massachusetts, in a letter to the editor of the Greenfield Gazette and Courier, (1869)

Unfortunately, the town’s dream of rivalling Buxton and Harrogate didn’t come to pass. Mills were built along the River Holme from the 1840s and the population of Lockwood exploded. It was no longer a quiet, relaxing, rural retreat, but a loud, industrial suburb. A road was built across the ornamental gardens (now Albert Street) and visitors decreased.

Lockwood Public Baths

In 1869, the Huddersfield Corporation purchased the facilities, transforming them from a luxurious spa into a standard swimming pool. The pool now provided swimming lessons to for the local schoolchildren and was the only public swimming facility in the Huddersfield District until 1879.

In 1881, the baths were refurbished, and the pool enlarged, but in 1939, the Huddersfield Corporation closed the facilities. In 1941, the building was sold to a private company, and converted to an engineering works.

All that remains

Only the ornamental Tuscan entranceway (minus one pillar) remains of what was Lockwood Spa Baths. It now forms part of a tyre shop. The remains of the baths are supposedly still beneath the floor.

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Sources

The Examiner

Huddersfield Exposed

Denis Kilcommons: Spa Towns

Kirklees Curiosities

Historic England

Dreams of a Spa