Harrogate Royal Pump Room, Valley Gardens and Birk Crag

All sorts of remarkable cures were attributed to the mineral waters. By 1700, Harrogate was well established as a spa town. Sulphur water was thought to be good for the skin, and it became fashionable to bathe in heated spa water.

The 'Old Sulphur Well' became popular despite the terrible smell. Traveller Celia Fiennes described this in her journal for 1697 as "being so very strong and offensive that I could not force my horse near".

Cottages, lodgings, bathing houses and inns were sited near the Old Sulphur Well, directly opposite. The Crown, which was originally a yeoman's house, was converted into an inn in about 1700.

In 1835, the Crown's owner, Joseph Thackwray, caused a scandal when he was accused of attempting to steal the sulphur spring. A plaque in Crown Place, the cobbled lane next to the pump room, records the site of the shop where the well was being dug to divert the spring. There was much controversy and legal action, and the final result was the 'Harrogate Improvement Bill'. The practical outcome was the construction of the Royal Pump Room, a splendid octagonal building in the classical style.

Just across the road from the Royal Pump Room are the Valley Gardens, where more than 30 of Harrogate's 90 springs emerge. A little stream runs alongside, with ordered flower displays. It is hard to imagine that this area was once a wild and boggy common.

Harrogate is sited over a geological fault. Super-heated steam from deep within the earth forces its way up under great pressure. The steam absorbs minerals from the rocks it passes through, and cools and condenses near the surface.

The 'Magnesium Well Pump Room' was built sixteen years after the 'Royal Pump Room' and is gothic rather than classical in style. This was the first step towards the creation of the beautiful Valley Gardens, which were completed in time for Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887. Water from here was pumped to the 'Royal Bath Hospital' on the edge of the gardens, where it was used to treat rheumatic patients.

There are many attractive specimen trees in the Valley Gardens, and they each gradually merge into woodland, which leads on to 'Harlow Carr Botanical Gardens', one of the showpiece estates of the Royal Horticultural Society. The gardens are experimental as well as ornamental. The progress of different varieties of plants is compared. So there is a special interest for gardening enthusiasts.

From Birk Crag, an outcrop of millstone grit, 150 feet above Oak Beck, there are fine views. The walk continues through attractive woodland with a light canopy. On the way back into town, a short stretch along a road leads to a path through the woodlands and extends back into Valley Gardens, which takes you back down to the start.