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27
Feb
Harrogate designer lays out 'natural' vision for a 21st-century spa town
A radical new vision that puts nature and water at the heart of Harrogate’s development was laid out on Tuesday evening at the latest meeting of the Harrogate Town Plan Forum.
The forum is a group of volunteers who have come together to create a comprehensive plan for Harrogate’s development that could potentially be adopted by the new Harrogate Town Council when its first councillors are elected in May.
Over the last few months, around 30 people have met regularly at the United Reformed Church on West Park to discuss various aspects of the plan, and last night’s session focused on the environment.
Following a brief introduction by forum chair Stuart Holland, George Eglese, creative director at design studio FONTIS, took to the floor to give a presentation setting out his vision for a greener town, reinvigorated by allowing its waters to play a more prominent role in the urban environment.
Mr Eglese – who is a coordinator at Harrogate 250, an initiative to “revitalise Harrogate as a 21st-century spa town” – started by explaining the unique geology that gives rise to Harrogate’s diverse springs, and by recounting the main events in the town’s early history, including the Great Award: the setting aside of 200 acres of land we now call the Stray.
He said:
The Stray was originally moorland, with rocks, heather, gorse, trees and wetland, but these were all ‘tidied up’ throughout the Victorian age.
Then in the 1830s, plans were drawn up to drain the area ‘to render it more productive for grazing purposes’.
This 1829 painting shows a natural pond on what is now the Stray next to the Crown roundabout. Credit: J Stubbs.
The drive to "improve" the Stray was not without its opponents, such as local hotelier John Greeves, whose arguments, said Mr Eglese, "resonate with current ecological values". In 1834, he said:
The removal of these natural features [trees, ponds etc] would be a great loss to the character of Harrogate, leaving nothing but an artificial landscape where once nature thrived.
The urge to tame the Stray continued throughout the 20th century, and only recently has the council allowed even wildflowers to grow around the fringes.
Mr Eglese envisages a more natural-looking Stray, where the water is not drained, but left to behave as it used to, filling ponds and following ancient watercourses.
The natural source of Hookstone Beck is on the Stray. Image: George Eglese/FONTIS.
He has also used Yorkshire Water data and advanced mapping tools to show where water currently settles, for example on parts of the Stray after heavy rain, and where it used to flow – in becks, now culverted, flowing down what are now Cold Bath Road and Montpellier Hill. Another beck, albeit heavily modified, can still be seen flowing through the Valley Gardens before it disappears below street level near the main entrance.
Where water currently pools and flows on the Stray in Harrogate. Image: George Eglese/FONTIS.
Mr Eglese, who also sits on the board of Long Lands Common and is a trustee at Knaresborough Civic Society, told the Stray Ferret that the chance to create a town plan for Harrogate was an opportunity to place nature and the town’s waters at heart of its rebirth as a modern spa town. He said:
To me, this is an opportunity to rally the community around an integrated strategy to recognise the value of our spa heritage and its relevance in the 21st century.
The opportunity is huge. We have something nowhere else has. I was speaking to Unesco, to ask why Harrogate was not included in its list of Great Spa Towns of Europe. They said Harrogate is unique – other spa towns don’t have the diversity of waters we have – but we don’t use that.
The town does not have ‘continuing spa function’, which was a critical criterion when qualifying [for the Unesco list]. We do have the Turkish Baths, yes, but they don’t go far enough or utilise our mineral waters.
This was the primary point, so if we could come up with a plan to open up the springs, big tick.
A visualisation of Harrogate's spa infrastructure above the geological fault that gives rise to its springs. Image: George Eglese/FONTIS.
Another option might be to mark the courses of the town’s hidden becks so that residents and visitors could see where they run beneath the ground.
Mr Eglese added:
We have an opportunity to put water back at the heart of the town. Harrogate can be a beacon of health and well-being once again.
The next meeting of the Harrogate Town Plan Forum is free to attend and will focus on Health and Well-being. It will be held at the United Reformed church on West Park in Harrogate on Wednesday, March 12.
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