Harrogate; Saturday, 21 May, 2022

I ended up having one of the best nights sleep I’d had in a very long time and ended up sleeping well past my original alarm. In my original plan I’d intended on heading out to the remains of a Roman site in the town of Aldborough, which was a slightly complicated journey to get to and required me to get a specific bus from the bus station. At the time I was supposed to be catching that bus I was still sat in the restaurant having Breakfast so it was clear I needed to change my plans for the day.

Instead, after a relaxed breakfast, I did wander over to the bus station, but in this instance to catch the bus south towards the town of Spofforth and to visit the ruins of the medieval castle/fortified manor house that is located there.

I spent quite a bit of time exploring the ruins, which given they’ve been abandoned for over 400 years were in pretty good condition, certainly better condition than the neighbouring railway viaduct that has only been abandoned for 60 years.

I caught the bus back into Harrogate and had a bit of a wander around town before finding myself at the Royal Pump Room Museum. The museum is housed in the former Royal Pump Room, which housed the Strong Sulphur Well – one of the key watering points for the in-crowd during the season when Harrogate was at it’s peak. Today you can still see the well, though it’s under a glass cover so you can’t smell it – for that you just need to walk round the back of the pump room where the poor peoples tap was, there the smell of sulphur is still quite strong, along with a warning from the council that the water isn’t fit for human consumption!

Having looked round the museum I walked the short distance to the Mercer Art Gallery to look around that before going for a general wander around town.

I’d lost track of time a bit, so by the time I realised I was feeling quite hungry it was already gone 16:30. As I was booked to go to a comedy gig in the evening I decided that it was probably as good a time as any to combine lunch and dinner and have a quick meal.

I then headed back to the hotel to freshen up and change out of shorts as the weather forecast for the evening wasn’t that great, before heading back out over to the theatre to catch Milton Jones’ tour as, by pure chance, it was passing through at the same time as I was here.

The show ended a little before 21:30, and by the time I was back at the hotel it was definitely time to turn in for the night.