Willenhall Spa

In his book the "Annals of Willenhall" - Frederick Wm. Hackwood describes how in the 18th Century, Willenhall in the Industrial Black Country almost became a health resort : -

"It is difficult to imagine Willenhall as a health resort; yet it was no fault of Dr. Richard Wilkes that his native spot did not become a fashionable inland watering place.

It should be explained that during the eighteenth century, there was almost a mania to discover and exploit wells and springs, and to regard them as fountains of health to which the fashionable and the well-to-do might be attracted.  Before the newer fashion of sea bathing was introduced—which was early in the next century—there was a great number of these newly-invented places of inland resort.  For instance, Dudley had its charming Spa on Pensnett Chace; and to show that Wolverhampton was not behind and, we take the liberty of quoting from the MSS. of Dr. Wilkes:

“A medical spring has lately been discovered at Chapel Ash, in the south-west part of this town, which purges moderately and without the least uneasiness.  A brown ocre, or absorbent earth, remains after evaporation, mixt with salt and sulphur; so that it seems to promise relief in all kinds of disorders proceeding from costiveness, and alcaline, fiery, and acid humours in the stomach and bowels, attended by a flow of feverish heat, eruptions on the skin called scorbutic, headaches, giddiness, flatulency, sour eructations, flying pains called nervous and rheumatic, the hemorrhoids or piles, asthma, and many other disorders which seem incurable by the most powerful medicines.”

Truly the Doctor might have earned a good living nowadays by writing the advertisements for modern quack specifics.

Shaw’s description of the Willenhall Spa says that “the spring arises on the north side of a brook which runs almost directly from the west to the east, and so very near to it that a moderate shower will raise the brook as to cover it.  About 200 yards up this brook, on the same side, are several springs, one of which was much taken notice of by our ancestors, and consecrated to St. Sunday, no common saint.  "