Buoyant house prices are far from the only benefits of living in a town with a natural spring
A rather severe marble girl on the little temperance fountain in the centre of Bath pours eternally from a jug above the inscription "Water is Best". She is right ? or so it appears, in every sense, from the latest index of UK property prices. Spa towns have an average premium of 16% over houses in neighbouring places where springs have yet to bubble or stink. In some hotspots, such as Boston Spa and Ilkley in West Yorkshire, prices are almost twice the level for the rest of the county. Life is not always fair, but it seems specially perverse that fissures should open and allow natural water to the surface largely in areas already generously blessed. Leave aside property prices, and Bath, Ilkley and most of the others would be lovely if no chalybeate or other soothing water had ever seeped from their soil. But the dips and douches created their own virtuous circle; from Buxton to Royal Tunbridge Wells, and even at little Askern near Doncaster, fine architecture followed the hypochondriacs and now attracts wealthy buyers. And the benefits may spread. Just as the best place to live in Cheltenham is not in a Regency house but opposite one, so the canniest property buyers will go for cheaper towns near spas and so have the best of both worlds. And perhaps, live in geothermal hope. Let us not forget that "Nil sine aqua" was the motto of humble south Staffordshire's waterworks company, while their counterparts in Grimsby had "E rupe erumpet aqua" (Let water gush from the rock).
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/14/in-praise-of-spa-towns
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