Noteworthy Buildings on The Commons – The Spa Hotel

The Spa Hotel, one of our corporate sponsors, abuts the Bishop’s Down part of the Common, famed as the spot where Queen Henrietta Maria and her entourage pitched their tents, while taking the waters in 1629.

The present building started life as a country mansion called Bishop’s Down Grove, which was built in the 1760s by the physician Sir George Kelley, sometime Sheriff of Kent and Lord of the Manor of Rusthall. The building had then, as it has now, a central entrance, with five first-floor windows above, between projecting canted bays on either side. This still forms the central core of the Hotel. Sir George was a great supporter of the horse racing on the Common for which, we are told, he frequently gave a silver cup.

On the death of Sir George Kelley in 1772, the property was purchased by Major Yorke, who had distinguished himself under
the command of Lord Clive at the Battle of Plessey in 1757. Major Yorke occupied Bishop’s Down Grove for some twenty five years, and his memory is honoured by the name Major York’s Road, which crosses the Common, to link Bishop’s Down with The Pantiles.

In 1834 Queen Victoria, then a young Princess, was a visitor to Bishop’s Down Grove, where she watched a Yeomanry Tournament and, it is said, sat sketching under the trees. Then, in 1878, further distinguished visitors arrived with great aplomb for the opening of Bishop’s Down Grove as a Hydropathic Sanatorium. This phase in the building’s history proved short-lived, and the property was re-designated as the Spa Hotel in 1880.

The change of function from a country mansion involved much enlargement, both sideways and upwards. In the 1870s the noteworthy Tunbridge Wells firm of Willicombe and Oakley seems to have been involved in the enlargement process, and local architect M Lawrence Caley in the design of the West Wing. Murkin Lawrence Caley was the father of Herbert Murkin Caley, the Mayor at the time of the granting of the prefix “Royal” to the town in 1909. The East Wing, which contains the Chandelier Restaurant, is understood to be the work of the London architect Benjamin Tabberer in 1881, as was the raising in height of the old mansion.

By the 1890s, the Hotel was capable of accommodating 150 visitors, and was offering a range of bathing facilities, including Turkish, Electric, and swimming. The Goring family bought the Hotel in 1964 and, in 2006, sold the property to Scragg Hotels Limited.

Philip Whitbourn

This is an extract from the Spring 2010 Newsletter, to receive it, and help the Commons at the same time, why not become a Friend, it’s only £5!