‘Bath, Harrogate … Woodhall?’ A short break in one of the UK’s most forgotten spa towns

The Lincolnshire village, the height of fashion a century ago, offers fascinating history, a woodland cinema, excellent cycle routes and a deeply restorative feel

It was 6.30am, the cockcrow slot at Jubilee Park lido, and still not quite light. I hadn’t wanted to come this early – it was the only time I’d been able to book. But as I slid into the pool – heated to a delicious 29C – I realised it was a gift. Vapours rose dreamily into cool air laced with owl hoots and the whiff of dewy blooms, and I swam into a sunrise that became more vivid with every stroke. A man in the next lane paused to admire the reddening dawn too; he was hungover, he said, but had come to do his morning lengths nonetheless. A cure of sorts.

Bath, Harrogate, Buxton – Woodhall? This Lincolnshire village isn’t one of Britain’s headline spa towns. Most probably don’t know where it is – 18 miles (29km east of Lincoln, for the record. But at the turn of the 20th century, Woodhall Spa was among the most fashionable places to be seen, to be healed.

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Author: Sarah Baxter