5 August 1661: John Ray visits Copgrove (Harrogate), the pauper’s spa
John Ray and William Derham. 1760. Select Remains of the Learned John Ray, With His Life. London: George Scott. Get it:
.Excerpt
[From the sulphur well at Harrogate] we went to St. Mugnus his well at Copgrave, whither a great number of poor people resort to bathe themselves. They put on their shirts wetted in the water, letting them dry upon their backs. This water operates (if at all) by its extraordinary coldness and astringency.
To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.
Abbreviations:
- ER: East Riding
- GM: Greater Manchester
- NR: North Riding
- NY: North Yorkshire
- SY: South Yorkshire
- WR: West Riding
- WY: West Yorkshire
Comment
Comment
P.D. Hartley is good:
It can hardly have been by chance that in 1626 Dr Edmund Deane found it necessary, in his Spadacrene Anglia to blast off a broadside against this ‘innefectual superstitious relique of Popery’, for people were coming from far and wide to seek a cure for their ills in the miraculous waters of St Mungo’s Well… An entry in the Copgrove Parish Register gives a rather sad insight into the fact that St Mungo’s holy water was more mystical than medical: ‘A stranger Yt. came to Ye well was buried May 27 1710’
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Original
[From the sulphur well at Harrogate] we went to St. Mugnus his well at Copgrave, whither a great number of poor people resort to bathe themselves. They put on their shirts wetted in the water, letting them dry upon their backs. This water operates (if at all) by its extraordinary coldness and astringency.
55 words.
Tags
Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.
- Copgrove (1)
· - Harrogate (11) ·
- Mineral spa (3) ·
- Poverty (16) ·
- Ray, John (1627-1705) (6), one of the earliest of the English parson-naturalists ·
- Saint Mungo (1) ·
- Spa town (3) ·
- Traditional medicine (2) ·
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