Dean Wood Spa (ruin)

The remains of a cold water ‘spa’ or cold water bathing pool possibly dating from the 17th Century or earlier.

Common locally, the spas probably date from the English curative water treatment craze which began in the latter-half of the 17th Century and ended in the early 19th. Spas were often situated at the site of a spring or a small river with supposedly favourable mineral content or exceptionally cold water.

The spa found at the top of Dean Wood at Rivington is in the form of an oval pool below a small waterfall. The pool seems to have been cleared of the numerous rocks and pebbles from the stream bed to expose the bedrock beneath. There is a substantial amount of hydrated iron (iii) oxide or ‘ochre’ entering from the north bank which may have been seen as favourable mineral content. (Iron plays a key role in both oxidative stress and photo-induced skin damage’ – Wright et al. 2014).

The spa which was still shown on the mid-19th Century OS map, was accessed from an old straight track that led from the site of Sparks on Sheep House Lane to the section of Sheep House Lane just above the spa. The track was crossed by another lost route from Sparks Brow to Bradley’s.