White Wells in Ilkley: How the tradition of the New Year's Day Whitewells Dip began

Mark Hunnebell who cares for White Wells in Ilkley, ready for visitors to take part in the New Years Day tradition of jumping in the plunge pool

Transcript

00:00 Okay, so I'm Mark Honeywell, I live at Whitewells on Ilkley Moor.

00:04 It's a fair blustery period most of the time and if you look without your hat,

00:08 and Ilkley Moor backtaps the place to be on New Year's Day.

00:12 The tradition's been going on since 1995, so it's a relatively recent tradition,

00:17 it's not an old one at all, but it's grown in popularity since the 90s,

00:21 over the last three decades or so, and now we're looking forward to getting

00:25 quite a number of people coming here on New Year's Day.

00:28 Anything up to about 300, which was around about the numbers that we got last year.

00:32 It's a great way of saying the New Year, and a very novel one as well,

00:36 a very unusual way to do that. You come along here, you bring your swimming stuff

00:41 and you jump into the cold water bath behind me, which is round about 8 degrees

00:46 on average temperature, throughout the year. But if it's a cold day,

00:50 it'll be a little bit cooler than that on New Year's Day.

00:53 I go in it every day, New Year's Day or any other day, and it's very invigorating

00:58 and very refreshing. You go in, come out, go back in again and come out.

01:02 Don't stay in for very long, just do a quick dip, but you feel buzzing when you come out.

01:07 It really is a good feeling when you go in and come out of there.

01:11 Your body feels tingly all over and you're ready to go for the rest of the day,

01:16 and the rest of the year if you're going on New Year's Day.

01:19 The building itself dates back to around about 1700, at which time there was a bath

01:23 at the top of the hill behind the present buildings, and that was done away with in 1791

01:30 when the two baths that we've got on the site here were built in Byrogwood Dale.

01:36 It was instrumental in establishing Hillfield as a smart town, and throughout the 19th century

01:41 it could have been quite famous for people coming along and taking the waters from the town,

01:45 and big hydros were built where you could come along and do that.

01:49 But into the 20th century the popularity of that waned, and Whitewells became something of a curiosity.

01:56 Around about 50 years ago, by the 1970s, unfortunately Whitewells was on the cusp of dereliction

02:02 and was going to be demolished. But fortunately it was saved by Eric Busby, a local businessman,

02:08 in conjunction with the town council, put some of his own money into it, renovated the place,

02:13 and made it more or less as it is at the present time.

02:16 We've got Gas and Electric, that came in in 1994, so we've had that here now for about 30 years or so.

02:23 Prior to that it was all on the old Calagas.