Ilkley Eastside Wander #4: BRGC Warren Hill
This is the 4th of a series of 20 caches which takes you around some of the lovely countryside immediately to the east of Ilkley. The magnetic micro is hidden in a 'cripple hole' in the drystone wall alongside a small trail heading down towards the access gates to this picturesque 9-hole parkland golf course. Please BYOP as there is no writing tool in the cache.
After completing the cache you will enter the golf course and pass across a grassy viewpoint (shown as Warren Hill on the 1851 Ordnance Survey map) with a memorial tree which gives a fine panoramic view over the Wharfe Valley.
The cache was originally meant to be hidden in the upper corner of the golf course, but health and safety considerations did not permit this to be done.
See GC8PCW2 Ilkley East Wander ~1: Intro and . . . Prick!? for information on the series, waypoints and cache access. See Gallery for an annotated map with cache locations and parking spots.
To reach the cache location:
a) as a one-off: use the Alternative Approach for Early Series Caches given in IEW#1 (use above link).
b) as part of the series sequence: from #3 head up the steep grass trail and then along the drystone wall to the cache location.
Ben Rhydding Golf Club (BRGC) was built between 1885-1890 as part of a huge Victorian hotel - the Ben Rhydding (Hydropathic Establishment) - founded on the craze for spa water treatment, or hydrotherapy, which was regarded as a cure for all ailments. It followed the establishment of the White Wells Bath House on Ilkley Moor in1793 and is part of the arc of spa wells that centres on the famous Royal Baths in Harrogate.
Hamer Stansfield, Mayor of Leeds at the time, was so convinced that bathing at White Wells had improved his health that he formed the Hydropathic Company and built the ‘Hydro’ hotel near the Cow and Calf rocks. He also developed the Ben Rhydding railway station in the village of Wheatley on the recently opened line from Leeds to serve staff and visitors to the hotel.
Amongst the extensive (water-based) 
facilities available at the Hydro were a caldarium (hot room), tepidarium (warm room) and frigidarium (cold pool) - see Gallery for illustrations of these.
Ben Rhydding Hydro which opened in 1844 costing about £35,000 was built on 65 acres of land bought from the Bollings of Wheatley Hall. Set 500 feet above sea level it offered fresh air and magnificent views, along with pure cold water sourced from the moor.
By the 1850s it was acquired by a William Macleod and in 1859 a Turkish Bath was added at a cost of £2,000. As the boom in spa tourism died down towards the end of the 19th century, the owners built a 9-hole golf course as an alternative attraction, and by 1900 the hotel’s name had been changed to the Ben Rhydding Golf Hotel.
The hotel prospered up until the Second World War when in 1939 at 24 hours notice it was requisitioned by the Government for the war effort and taken over by the Wool Control Board. From 1948 it stood empty and was demolished in 1955.
It has been observed that the hydro turned out to be a step too far or was maybe too late for the boom in hydrotherapy. It may have never been as busy as hoped for and was ultimately too big to be put to other uses.
The golf course remained, and new houses sprung up beneath it in the 1960s, many built with the stones of the demolished hotel.