The Friends of Ilkley Moor volunteers have been working hard, improving the steps at the top of Heber’s’ Ghyll. There is more to be done, but already there has been substantial improvement.
Most excitingly of all the spring at the top of Heber’s’ Ghyll has been restored. Older readers will remember when there was a spring with a tin cup on a chain, so people could drink the (allegedly) therapeutic water. For the past 40-50 years the spring has not run. Now after a lot of hard work the spring is running. It is a chalybeate spring and 1n 1606 a physician stated that such waters could cure:
“the colic, the melancholy, and the vapours; it made the lean fat, the fat lean; it killed flat worms in the belly, loosened the clammy humours of the body, and dried the over-moist brain.”
Owen Wells, Chair of FoIM said “We do not recommend that persons with over moist brains or flat worms in the belly should drink the water. I had a taste and thought it was fairly disgusting. We hope to get a proper analysis made to test whether it is of drinking quality. We are however delighted that this traditional spring is once again flowing free.”
