Milk River Bath in Clarendon - IAN ALLEN
JOHNATHON LUDFORD MUST have been in a state of shock when the slave he so soundly beat days before, walked up to him, a vision of health and vigor. Where were the wails and open wounds? Where was the pallid skin and where on earth had the slave gone to after he escaped into the bushes? After negotiating his continued good health, the runaway took his master to the source of his salvation, the Milk River.
At Ludford's death, the property was willed to the government in 1791 and the first public baths were opened three years later. A modest hotel was built on the property with nine tiled baths where guests can submerge into the famed waters, whose radioactivity rivals those of Europe's leading spas.
POTENT WATER
Tests have shown that the Milk River Bath is three times more active than Karls-bad in Austria and 54 times more active than the hot sulphur springs of Baden in Switzerland. So potent are the waters that they are a reputed cure for various skin ailments such as gout, liver disorders and rheumatism. Guests at the hotel have access to the baths all day but general visitors still have between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. 'to take to the waters'. A public mineral water swimming pool is open on weekends.
The spa is currently being targeted by the Clarendon Industrial Provident Society which wants it upgraded so the Milk River Bath can effectively compete with its international rivals.
Time has changed. The slave master and his whip are gone, replaced by the scourge of modern-day living, but still the Milk River flows to heal all wounds.
Do
you have a problem? Is something bothering
you? Write to