The ambitions of Lockwood Spa, that I wrote about last week, had old friend Mike Shaw, former editor of the Colne Valley Guardian, straight on the phone.

“They only got the idea because we had a spa first,” he said.

“Slaithwaite Spa opened in 1825. Theirs opened two years later.

At Lockwood, they obviously thought ‘what they can do, we can do better’. But they didn’t. The Colne Valley came out on top as usual.”

Local businessman Richard Varley built the spa baths at Slaithwaite almost 200 years ago to take advantage of two mineral springs of sulphur and iron. It expanded with leisure gardens and bowling greens.

In the 1860s, local historian John Sykes says: “Slawit Spa was the Harrogate of the district. The first Wednesday in May was one of Slawit’s great days: the annual opening of the baths.”

Celebrations started in the afternoon and lasted until after midnight with music and dancing. “The elite of the Colne Valley were on view on this occasion, and patrons and visitors made their appearance at their best.

“There was a bachelor gentleman from Golcar, best known as ‘Miss Nance’, leading the open air ball on the green.

He was Dance Master (self appointed, I think), dancer and dandy; a ladies man, exuberant, and very much talked about both before the event and after.”

He adds: “The River Colne divided the two sets of premises, which were united by a substantial bridge. On the one side were the numerous baths, in front of which were a spiral fount and a mineral spring.

On the other side were the green and lovers’ walks, and shady nooks and bowers, and seasonable and suitable trees, and May flowers abounding, with accommodating seats for rest and admiration, and singing birds to complete the complement of pleasure and admiration.”

Local doctors testified that the local mineral waters compared favourably with places of greater fame. It was said they were “beneficial for cutaneous (skin), rheumatic and other diseases.”

Prices were 6d for the swimming bath, 1s for a shower bath, 2s for a hot or vapour bath.

An individual subscription for the season cost 12s 6d and a family ticket was 25s. A shilling is equivalent to 5p in today’s money.

Charitable subscriptions were set up so that the poor could also take the cures.

A large hall was built in 1889 that was used for dances, public meetings, brass band contests and social functions.

Later, a maple floor was laid for roller skating and then it was converted into Slaithwaite’s first cinema. This closed in 1914 when

the operators opened a cinema in Brittania Road. During the First World War, the hall was used for training volunteers.

Like everything else, spas and pleasure gardens had their day before lapsing in popularity.

By 1925 the grounds were described as “an untidy bedraggled place which is not even genteel in its shabbiness”.

The War Office requisitioned the hall during the Second World War for use by army units stationed in Slaithwaite and it was sold in 1945 for demolition for £176.

Today, the glory days when the cream of Colne Valley Society would attend the opening of the Spa season, are consigned to history but the Friends of Slaithwaite Spa is at least reviving the area.

It’s a group whose aim is to restore and enhance the Slaithwaite Spa Complex as an environmentally friendly open Green Space, to be used and enjoyed as it once was 200 years ago. But without the baths.