A hundred year old spa - the healing spring of Langold

By R B Parish

This is perhaps the oddest, as well as the newest, healing well in the county and illustrates that such sites can arise in recent years. The Langold ‘Spa’ owes its existence to a pilot bore made to find the extent of the Firbeck Coalfield made in 1912.  When the bore was made, water came gushing out and soon it appears locals where using the water. They claimed that the water was good for curing hangovers, preventing boils and pimples and even as an aphrodisiac! An anonymous article from 1977 states that a 65 year old local man went daily down to the spa and drank a bottle full.

The use of the ‘well’ lead to the Langold Country Park staff building a stone wall enclosing a drinking fountain and even an anonymous poem written in the 1980s refers to its discovery and properties.

           The site still exists as restored in the 1980s. The spring arises at some speed from a two feet high metal pump and down a stone channel into the lake. The site is in a stone walled enclosure ten foot by four foot, slightly vandalised and rubbish strewn but generally well preserved. Surprisingly no sign exists on the structure to explain it but it continues to produce large amounts of clear and presumably health giving waters.

Extracted from the book R.B. Parish Holy wells and healing springs of Nottinghamshire.