Harrogate: Spa Water, Conference Town, and the Stray
Harrogate exists because of sulphur. The Tewit Well, discovered in 1571, was the first of over eighty mineral springs identified in and around the town. By the eighteenth century, Harrogate had become one of the leading spa towns in Europe, attracting visitors who drank or bathed in waters variously described as tasting of rotten eggs and smelling worse. The Royal Pump Room, built in 1842 over the strongest sulphur well in Europe, is now a museum where visitors can still sample the water. Most wish they had not.
The town that grew around the springs is prosperous and knows it. The Montpellier Quarter, with its antique shops and independent boutiques, sits at the southern end of the town centre. Betty's Tea Rooms on Parliament Street, opened in 1919 by a Swiss confectioner who arrived in England unable to speak the language, pulls a permanent queue. The population is around 77,000. Harrogate functions as the commercial centre for a large rural hinterland across the former Harrogate district and into the Yorkshire Dales. Leeds is fifteen miles south, York twenty miles east.
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Harrogate exists because of sulphur. The Tewit Well, discovered in 1571, was the first of over eighty mineral springs identified in and around the town. By the eighteenth century, Harrogate had become one of the leading spa towns in Europe, attracting visitors who drank or bathed in waters variously described as tasting of rotten eggs and smelling worse. The Royal Pump Room, built in 1842 over the strongest sulphur well in Europe, is now a museum where visitors can still sample the water. Most wish they had not.
The town that grew around the springs is prosperous and knows it. The Montpellier Quarter, with its antique shops and independent boutiques, sits at the southern end of the town centre. Betty's Tea Rooms on Parliament Street, opened in 1919 by a Swiss confectioner who arrived in England unable to speak the language, pulls a permanent queue. The population is around 77,000. Harrogate functions as the commercial centre for a large rural hinterland across the former Harrogate district and into the Yorkshire Dales. Leeds is fifteen miles south, York twenty miles east.
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