STEAMING AROUND BRITAIN
The best of the rest
HARROGATE North Yorkshire
Harrogate literally oozes class: the Journal of Engineering Geology and Hydrology Journal has a map hectic with little dots: Central Harrogate (36 springs), Valley Gardens (33 springs), magnesium well, chalybeate spring, St John’s Well, Sulphur Well, Tewitt Well. The latter put the town on the map in the 16th century, but its heyday was Victorian and ever since it’s been famously gran
Stroll in the lush Valley Gardens, where the aptly named Bogs Field sits on dozens of mineral wells. Book into the Turkish Baths, restored to full Victorian eclectic fabulousness in 2018 after 15 years of work; all Moorish keyhole arches, Italian terrazzo floors and cheery striped tiling. Sadly, no Harrogate water, but the baths reopen on May 17 for the full hammam, with restricted numbers.
For a flavour of times gone by, hop into the Royal Pump Room Museum, smell the sulphurous water on a well tour, then repair to the dim sum restaurant at the other end of the Royal Baths to banish the memory.
SOOTH Harrogate Turkish Baths, 2hr 15 minute sessions £19-£32 (01423 556746; turkishbathsharrogate.co.uk) STAY Rooms at the historic Harrogate Majestic Hotel & Spa start at £89 a night (01423 700 300; experiencethemajestic.com)
PEEBLES HYDRO Scottish Borders
There’s nothing like a spot of Queen Anne Revival and this enormous hotel – rebuilt in 1907 after a fire burnt down the even more flamboyant earlier building – is on a steep terrace in glorious Border country. It opened as the Peebles Hydropathic Establishment in 1881 as the water cure craze swept Britain. Its water came from the Shieldgreen spring (still does) and although it doesn’t feed the spa, it does go into the
Hydro Gin distilled in the hotel, where there’s a still and a gin school.
I bet the founding Hydropathic Company would be appalled, but today’s visitors can totter back to pleasingly cosy contemporary rooms (Signature rooms have sensational views) and the Pure spa has a huge menu, including natural and vegan treatments.
There’s a free leisure club with a pool and gym, saunas, steam rooms and spa baths that reopen after May 17, and tons of stuff for families to do, including a maze and golf, and a Go Ape and the brilliant Glentress mountain biking centre near by.
SOOTH & STAY Spa packages from £125 per person (01764 651 846; peebleshydro.co.uk)
ROYAL TUNBRIDGE WELLS Kent
This venerable spa town has a chalybeate spring, discovered by a Jacobean courtier in 1606 (chalybeate, pronounced ka-lib-ee-at, comes from the Latin chalybs, or “steel” – its water is iron rich). By the 18th century it had everything the discerning spa-goer could wish for: yucky water that needed to be taken as prescribed, usually several glasses a day, served by a “dipper”, a woman wielding a cup on a long handle. Then you repaired to the Walks (now the Pantiles), a street lined with colonnaded rows of shops, to see what was going down.
They got the “Royal” fairly late, when King Edward VII visited in 1909. In summer, you can imagine what it was like because costumed dippers will serve you with a cup of orange-tinged water. Yum.
The Spa Hotel, at the other end of Major York’s Road from the Pantiles, started life as a Georgian house before becoming a hotel in the 1880s. It sits in 14 acres of grounds with a floodlit tennis court and a 10-metre indoor pool, steam room and saunas that reopen on Jul 27. The SpaSpa offers Espa, Jessica and St