In 1833, John Williams, a speculating businessman, purchased a parcel of land behind the Promenade Room on Swan Road and constructed Low Harrogate’s first public suite of baths. The Victoria Baths were described by Dr Granville in the 1840’s as “very creditable… The bathing tanks…are oblong and ample, and altogether sunken into the floor and tiled…Terms are three shillings for each warm bath… about 4,000 baths are used during the season at the Victoria and 6,000 at the Montpellier…”
The Montpellier Baths were built by the owner of the Crown Hotel, Joseph Thackwray, who appears to have been a rival of Williams. Thackwray’s baths were built in 1834 in the garden of the Crown Hotel on a site which later became the site of the Royal Baths of 1897. The digging of foundations for the Montpellier Baths unearthed six new wells, including a fresh water well, four valuable new sulphur wells, and the Kissingen Well, which proved to be one of Harrogate’s most popular waters.
A suite of baths and a comfortable hotel were built at Harlow Carr in 1844 by Henry Wright, the owner of the estate, which possessed four springs of mild sulphur water and a chalybeate. These springs were mentioned in 1740 by Dr Short, in his “History of Mineral Waters” but were not cleaned out and protected until 1840.