Croft Spa Hotel Croft-on-Tees, England

Text courtesy of Historic England. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.

CROFT-ON-TEES A 167 NZ 2809-2909 (west side) 10/29 Croft Spa Hotel

GV II

Hotel. 1835. By Ignatius Bonomi for Sir William Chaytor. Roughcast, Welsh slate roof. 2 storeys. Irregular plan. Main range of 2:3:2:1 bays, with 4-bay ballroom range added probably c1860 to left, and 6-bay coach-house to right. Main range: "central" 3 bays project slightly, with coped gable treated as pediment; the side bays successively recessed. Central 6-panel door below fanlight, with timber porch of square Tuscan columns with exaggerated entasis, the flat roof forming balcony to first-floor French window above, with pedimented doorcase which breaks into the band forming effect of pediment, and has blind oculus in tympanum. 16-pane sash windows with ashlar sills. First-floor band. Stacks between second and third, fifth and sixth, seventh and eighth bays. To left: ballroom range is taller and with deep ground floor; to right, 4-panel door in pedimented Tuscan doorcase; 15-pane sash windows on ground floor, 9-pane unequally hung sashes on first floor. Ashlar coping. Stack at right end. To right: coach-house is lower; segmental-arched openings on ground floor, with board doors except in sixth where blocked, and with blocked doorway between fifth and sixth bays; side-sliding sash windows on first floor; C20 clay pantile roof, hipped to right. Interior: the dining room, which projects to the rear, has a decorative plaster ceiling. The hotel is a relic of the heyday of Croft Spa preserved in its original condition. The sulpherous mineral waters of Croft were first noticed early in the C17, and the first bath was erected in 1688. By 1713 the waters were being sold in London in sealed bottles at high prices. The first hotel was built in 1808. A new suite of baths was built c1815 at the Old Spa (qv) by Sir William Chaytor, followed c1827 by the New Spa (qv), which had hot and cold baths. The coming of the railway brought more visitors, and the station was called Croft Spa Station. To accommodate visitors to the "Wells", a large number of lodging houses were built. T Bulmer, History, Topography and Directory of North Yorkshire, (1890), p 414; H Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840, (1978), p 123; T A Littleton, "Cure-All?", an article on Croft Spa published in Richmond and District Civic Society Annual Report (1982), pp 25-27; VCH i, p 163; W White, History, Gazetteer and Directory of the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire (1840), p 414.

Listing NGR: NZ2885709770