Well well well at Croft On Tees (Spa Walk 3) Traditional Cache
The Lambs @ 9: Time to go for this one..
Well well well at Croft On Tees (Spa Walk 3)
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Difficulty:
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Size: 
(small)
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Part of the Croft On Tees Spa Walk Series (Cache No: 3)
For many years people had used the waters at Croft as a cure all for their farm animals.
Around the late 1600’s Sir William Chaytor (who descendants still live in the village) built a cold bath house and early as 1713 the sulphurous spring water had acquired such fame that it was sold in London as a cure for ailments and diseases.
By the early 18th century a pipe had been laid supplying water from the source to a cold plunge pool and a tank where the water could be sampled.
Later in the century another well was located in the woodland to the north of the original site and was called the Sweet Well. The woodland on this site is in fact named after this well.
In 1827 Sir William Chaytor’s commissioned the boring of an even newer well further to the South and water was piped from this new “Canny well” or “Canniwell” to a New Spa designed by Ignatius Bonami which opened in 1829.
It comprised of Bath House, (with had a veranda) and a long corridor (where six warm bathrooms were lined with Dutch tiles) a vapour bath, a cold plunge bath which was lined with stone flags and paved with slate, an attendant’s room, a boiler room and a central pump room where water emerged from the New Well at a constant temperature of 11ºC and was drunk with an added teaspoonful of common salt.
With each bathroom was a dressing room and although the doors to these rooms were painted with white lead they developed a jet black coating from the effluvia.
The dressing rooms had carpets, chairs, dressing tables, mirrors and clean whitewalls.
A coach house and keeper’s cottage were built alongside the main Bath house.
By Edwardian times the Spa had developed into thriving business the Spa waters rivalling the Harrogate water in sulphur content. Visitors flocked in their hundreds to Croft to alleviate rheumatism, gout and other ailments where half a pint of the special water was to be drunk two or three times a day.
Special train called ”husbands trains” were laid on from the newly renamed Croft Spa station to reunite businessman’s families who stayed for weeks on end.
Indeed The Visitors’ Book named the entire Sunderland Football Team of 1901 who visited in the same year.
In the 1920s daily bus excursions to the Spa were a regular occurrence from Tyneside.
The Spa Baths opened at 7a.m, and various Spa treatments were offered at 2/- for hot sulphurous baths, 9d for cold baths, 6d for the cold plunge and water at 2d per glass.
By the late 1950s, however, when the proprietress died, it was little used, and the Spa closed soon afterwards.
The buildings still stood in the in the late 1960’s but were demolished shortly afterwards. A private house now stands on the original site.
The original well lies just outside Old Well Farm at approximately
N 54° 28.680 W 001° 33.831
The Sweet Well can be found at
N 54° 28.642 W 001° 34.274
Both these wells lie just off a public footpath if you wish to investigate them further
...and if you find the cache you are very close to the Canny Well.
If you have a keen sense of smell you might be able to locate the well by the strongly sulphurous smell before you see it. We have been told the water is safe to drink, if you really want to! But you do this entirely at your own risk. Apart from the not very pleasant after taste we have suffered no nasty side effect as yet
A woodland walk along Spa Beck connected both the old and New Spas.
You can either return to the car along the footpath through Canny Well wood or follow the footpath along the tack (via the public footpath) to the road but please be careful if you choose this route as the is no footpath on the side of the road
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Gerr!