On Hither Moor, this 19th century sandstone quarry overlooks the road winding up the Cod Beck dale between Osmotherley and Scarth Nick1Priest’s Spa Quarry NYM NP HER No: 532.. Nowadays, the dale is best known for its reservoir that draws quite the crowd.
The quarry, mapped as “Priests’ Spa” by the early Ordnance Survey, owes its name to a spring allegedly blessed by a Roman Catholic priest, and so it stuck. I’d have thought a lone priest suffices for such blessings, so I can’t think what the O.S. imagined. Anyway, in bygone days, the spring held significant sway, touted for its presumed healing powers. Folks afflicted with bodily ailments would pilgrimage here from far and wide, placing their faith in the water’s potential curative magic2‘Priests’ Spa. | Northern Weekly Gazette | Saturday 26 January 1901 | British Newspaper Archive’. 2024. Britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk <https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0003075/19010126/278/0018> [accessed 28 February 2024].
Described as a small well of crisp, sparkling water—refreshing and clear—it once claimed the title of the best spring in the whole dale. Alas, today, all that meets the eye is a linear marsh, culverted beneath the road and dry-stone wall, where it emerges as a muddy ditch through the woodland surrounding the reservoir.
- 1Priest’s Spa Quarry NYM NP HER No: 532.
- 2‘Priests’ Spa. | Northern Weekly Gazette | Saturday 26 January 1901 | British Newspaper Archive’. 2024. Britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk <https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0003075/19010126/278/0018> [accessed 28 February 2024]
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