It was soon provided with all necessary Conveniences and Accommodations, and made one of the most beautiful and convenient places of that sort in England, much and deservedly celebrated, and frequented, and it’s certain that County, nor Warwickshire have any of this class comparable to it.”

So states Morton in his 1712 Natural History of Northamptonshire. Standing in this remote part of Northamptonshire, in a field far away from any urbanisation it is difficult to picture how this site could have been developed akin to something like a Spa town. Perhaps the clue to the decline is in the line: “tho it be neglected at present.” Did it ever recover…certainly Leamington Spa developed to overshadow it! Thomas Beeby (1915) in his invaluable Peculiarities of Waters and Wells. How They Were Explained 200 Years Ago and how They are Explained To-day tells us that the water was recognised before 1670 but little used. Morton (1712) describes its location as:

“The mineral waters at Cliffe, or the Spaw, as it is there called, arises at the foot of a clayey hill in a pleasant wood about a mile south of the village.”

Morton (1712) visited it in 1703 and his account states:

“The Reverend Mr. John Broughton, formerly Fellow of St. John’s College in Cambridge was the first who observ’d it to be a mineral water. In 1670 or thereabouts, it was approv’d of, and publically recommended by the Learned Dr. Brown, a Physician, then residing at Cliff, And has ever since been apply’d to, and deservedly celebrated, for the real Services it has done the Drinkers of it in divers Distempers, and especially those arising from Obstructions. It has likewise been successfully used externally in the Way of Bathing or from the spring, to take in Water for the Use of those who have cutaneous Diseases or Ulcers.” Short (1734) in his Natural, Experimental, and Medicinal History of the Mineral Waters in states that the water rises in a round stone basin; is a clear laxative or purging water, requiring 3,4 or 5 quarts to purge strong people and that it had cured several lame people. “It was soon provided with all necessary Conveniences and Accomodations, and made one of the most beautiful and convenient places of that sort in England, much and deservedly celebrated, and frequented, and it’s certain that County, nor Warwickshire have any of this class comparable to it, tho it be neglected at present.”

He notes that:

“A little below the spring is avery good bath”

Bridges (1791) in his History and antiquities of Northamptonshire adds that the spring was in Cock’s pits Coppice, between two hills and was made up with stone work. Beeby (1915) describes it as:

“The main chamber is a depression in the ground practically 18 feet square inside, with limestone walls and coping. Since it is on a slope, two of the walls also slope, the up-hill side sidewall being a little over 5 feet high and the downhill side one a little under 4 feet. There are five steps down to the floor from the coping on the lower side of the excavation, and the floor is cemented. On the floor is a circular, cup shaped cistern about 15 inches deep and 18 inches across, and on the rounded bottom if this, a little on one side, is a circular hole about 1 inch or more across, through the water comes. The water runs away through a trench about 41/2 inches wide and 2 inches deep, into a second chamber, which has an overflow to a drain. The smaller chamber is set an angle with the larger one the corner nearest the exit of the trench; it has 5 steps down like the larger chamber. Without the steps the chamber would be less than 6 feet square in area and taking out the space occupied by the steps there is left a space near to but somewhat under 6 feet by 2 feet, in which the water stands, also that this is scarcely a bath in the sense that Dr. Short’s remarks would lead one to anticipate; but apparently there was no other.”

He also adds that the water is still used to a small extent by people in the neighbourhood as a medicinal water, but more so for outward application in cases of cutaneous diseases and diseases of the eyes. Today, the site is forlorn but still remains much as Beeby describes although it looks when I visited during a rainy May, that the spring no longer flows.