Matlock and Matlock Bath Images: Matlock Bath : New Bath Hotel

This is a lovely view of the New Bath Hotel, one of Matlock Bath's old hotels and where people came for the medicinal properties of the water. It is possible the photograph dates from the 1930's. Certainly, there's no sign of an ash tree on Clifton Road that the webmistress used to climb in the 1950's. There are other clues. Dyson and Clough's garage is an empty space and Win Tor, at the bottom of Clifton Road, was still in existence. On the right of the photograph, above Holy Trinity Church, the remains of the Royal Hotel can be seen. This was destroyed by fire. Part of the hotel remained, as shown, but the building became very dilapidated.

Some of the New Bath's gardens can also be seen. They grew their own vegetables in the plot next to Clifton Road.

Below is another postcard showing the hotel's outdoor swimming pool and its picturesque turnstile. The pool, fed by thermal water, was very popular with locals during the summer months and it was here local children learned to swim. The white building became the annexe by the time this picture was taken, where bathers changed and where some of the hotel staff were accommodated. In earlier times it was the Bath Terrace Hotel. The long low building is part of the mews of Portland House.

Published by F. Frith & Co., Ltd, Reigate. No date

In 1852 the hotel was described as follows:
'The NEW BATH HOTEL, pleasantly situated at the South end of the Tufa Terrace, owed its existence to the second hot spring, that was discovered some years after the Old Bath. It has been enlarged at various periods, and now forms three sides of a quadrangle, and is a large and commodious establishment, with beautiful grounds.'^[1]

Just over fifty years later, Benjamin Bryan comments on the hotel and its bath:
'The "New Bath" is situate within the area of the Hotel to which it has given its name. This hotel is finely placed, has been thoroughly modernised, is luxuriously finished, and admirably managed. The bath, however, is very old fashioned. It is built of heavy masonry, with a low arched roof, almost in the foundations of the western wing; but although it has all the advantages of constant current, even temperature, and curative properties to be found elsewhere, it is not much used by visitors.'^[2]

Names of various people who owned or managed the hotel in earlier times:^[3]

George Withers Saxton (advertised from at least 1823 until 1855)
Miss Ivatt & Mrs. Jordan (their names appeared from 1857 to 1876)
Thomas Tyack^[4]

By 1899 the hotel was under new management^[5]. At the beginning of the twentieth century the New Bath Hotel Co. Ltd. were listed as proprietors^[6] and Bertram Clulow was the manager in 1901.^[7]

Postcards in the collection of, provided by and © Ann Andrews Intended for personal use only
Research also by Ann Andrews and information covers up until approximately 1960.

References (coloured hyperlinks are to transcripts elsewhere on this website):

^[1] Gazetteer and General Directory of Sheffield, and all the Townships, Parishes and Villages Within the Distance of Twenty Miles Round Sheffield by William White, published Sheffield, 1852, p.543
^[2] Benjamin Bryan, p206 - information about this book is elsewhere on this site
^[3] Nineteenth Century Trade Directories - transcripts are on this website
^[4] There's an advert, dated 1888, for Thomas Tyack's New Bath Hotel. Tyack went on to run the Royal Hotel for a time
^[5] Kelly's 1899 Directory for Matlock Bath
^[6] Kelly's 1908 Directory for Matlock Bath
^[7] Transcript of 1901 Census of Matlock Bath

There is more on site information about

Water Cures

Matlock & Matlock Bath Guides - the New Bath featured in many nineteenth century guides