Cold-water bathing looks set to make a comeback in Harrogate, after permission was granted this week to create a “wellness facility” on the edge of the town.

The plans – which relate to land between Bamber & Brown Café and Birk Crag House, near RHS Harlow Carr off Crag Lane – include a wood-fired sauna, cold plunge tubs and rinse shower unit.

In his covering letter, Guy Coates, who submitted the aplication, writes:

In supporting information submitted with the application, Mr Coates said that 80% of Bamber & Brown’s customers arrive on foot rather than by car, and he expects Cold Bath Plunge’s customers – reckoned at 14 to 17 a day – to be drawn predominantly from this same pedestrian population, “with significant crossover between café and sauna use in both directions”.

Mr Coates was born and brought up in Harrogate, and has recently moved back to the town after spending eight years working in financial services in London. He said he wanted to contribute “something positive and distinctive to the local area and the Harrogate business scene”.

Harrogate's history of cold-water bathing

During Harrogate’s spa heyday, bathing in cold water was common. A bathing house was built in 1837 over an unusually cold spring, sometimes known as St Magnus or St Mungo's Well, and the road that led to it from Low Harrogate was – and still is – called Cold Bath Road. The bathing house, which stood on the green at Beechwood Crescent, near the top end of Cold Bath Road, was demolished in 1974.

Closer to the site of Cold Bath Plunge at Birk Crag House, bathing also took place at a sulphur spring nearby. The bath house, which was built in 1840, still stands in the grounds of RHS Harlow Carr.