Thorlby (a trip around yet another spa town)

I suppose offering a feel is one way of raising money!

We’ve been planning a trip to Harrogate for a while and, after a couple of abortive attempts, we made it on Thursday.  Our car has been the subject of a product recall as some heaters have caught fire and the closest dealership around here is in Harrogate.  We also wanted to visit the town to have a look around and learn about its spa bath history.

Guess the make of our car

We generally use independent garages to do any work on our car as they are cheaper, and we don’t feel like we are having work done for the sake of it.  The free meals and drinks on offer at this dealership demonstrated how much money they must be raking in:

There was also an ice cream parlour which I admit to using later in the day

The garage was in Knaresborough, about five miles outside of Harrogate, and they had offered to give us a lift into town and pick us back up again later.  We had omitted to mention that we had a dog and it transpired their insurance wouldn’t allow dogs in their cars so we had to drive back to Harrogate in our car and one of the girls took it back.  

As expected, Harrogate was full of tourists and all the pretty tea rooms were packed.  Mind you, the posh ones wouldn’t allow dogs in anyway.

Probably the most famous tea rooms – they also have outlets in Ilkley and York

When we passed Betty’s again later in the afternoon, the queue was running right around the corner.

We started our walk at the Turkish baths and were rather disappointed as they were closed for refurbishment and not due to reopen for business until Monday!  These baths are one of only three Turkish baths left in the UK dating back to the 1800s.  It really was a shame that we couldn’t visit as the inside décor looks stunning (for more information, click here: Harrogate’sTurkish Baths)  

We had planned a four mile walk around the Victorian part of town (for obvious reasons 😉) but ended up walking over 10 miles during the day.  We were particularly impressed by the number of parks and green spaces that we came across.

Around the corner we found the entrance to the Royal Baths which were in the same building that houses the Turkish baths. 

The Royal Baths are now a Chinese restaurant

Across the small park from the Royal Baths is one of the town’s theatres, the Royal Hall.  This was built at the end of the Victorian era and, judging by the pictures of the inside must be well worth a visit.  Unfortunately, they didn’t allow Buddys inside ☹

The Royal Hall

Unlike Leamington where all the spas, bar one, have been lost through development, many spa buildings still remain in Harrogate with several still in use.  Here are some of the other ones we came across:

The Royal Pump room

The Royal Pump room is on the site of a sulphur spring that was discovered in 1626 although the pump room itself wasn’t built until 1841.  The sulphur spring is still open for use.

A little further out of town we walked through an area called Cold Bath and soon found out why it was named that:

  Sadly, the cold water baths here were demolished in 1974 (shades of what happened in Leamington)

We learnt a new word on our walk, ‘chalybeate’, which means spring water containing iron salts.  We picked this up from the site of the first spring discovered in Harrogate which, according to the plaque, was in 1571.

Tewit well housing the chalybeate spring

Tewit well was in a large area of grassland by the town centre called The Stray.  Amazingly, The Stray covers 215 acres and must be packed with picnickers etc. on a hot summer’s day.  We only saw dog walkers when we had our lunch on a bench as it wasn’t really the weather for it.

At the far end of The Stray we came across another chalybeate well, this one was called St John’s Well and is now a needlework and fabric shop:

St John’s Well

As with all spa towns, hotels were built to accommodate the visitors partaking in the health giving properties of the springs.  Harrogate has plenty of fine Victorian examples including the Cedar Court hotel:

 

The hotel was built on the site of Harrogate’s oldest hotel, the Queen’s Head which was opened in 1687.

The final pump room we came across was Montpellier Baths which was built in 1822:

 

Needless to say, we were well rewarded with Victorian post boxes; we found five in all and all were pillar boxes.  We think the royal cypher used on these boxes is rather pleasing to the eye.  I won’t bore you with yet more pictures of post boxes but will just include this one to highlight the cypher:

  

In the park opposite the pillar box above we came across a rock with a plaque commemorating Harrogate’s Brunswick station.  Built in 1848 it was only open for 16 years before it was closed in favour of Harrogate’s Central station. 

All that remains of Brunswick station

We popped into a Swedish style coffee shop for a late afternoon tea and then caught a bus back to pick up the car.