Harrogate; Sunday, 22 May, 2022

I was up relatively early, which turned out to be a good plan as I was able to walk down to breakfast and get a seat straight away, by the time I finished there was a lengthy queue of people waiting.

After checking out of the hotel I headed down into town and picked up the bus over to the neighbouring town of Knaresborough. Up until the discovery of the healing qualities of the spring water in Harrogate Knaresborough was the much more important town – with an ancient market place and a castle testifying to that. However, within a few years of the spas opening the money and power had moved across to Harrogate and these days Knaresborough is part of the borough of Harrogate.

After getting off the bus at the bus station I had a wander through town, taking in the castle and the market square, before heading down to the riverside and Mother Shipton’s Cave.

The cave is located next to the Petrifying Well by the banks of the River Nidd just down stream from the castle on the opposite bank. The Petrifying Well is actually a geological formation caused by a nearby spring that passes through very mineral rich rock just before it surfaces, consequently the water is high in absorbed minerals which then precipitate out as it flows down stream, in effect the well is just a very big stalagmite, but it has the ability to cover objects in a layer of minerals in a couple of months, making them look like they have turned to stone.

Legend has it that a teenager named Agatha was pregnant but refused to say who the father was – she was chased from town and took shelter in the cave by the petrifying well on the grounds that none of the townsfolk came this way for fear of being turned to stone. She gave birth to a girl who had a number of deformities, and was accused of being a witch. Possibly not helped by her ability to predict the future, but by the time she was a young lady her powers of soothsaying were winning her fans and she was able to live a long life into her 80s though she wasn’t allowed to be buried in a church graveyard as they still suspected her of witchcraft. The myth and legend wrapped round the weird calcifying spring effectively turned this area into the first tourist attraction in the country, and they’ve been parting tourists from their money ever since.

Having taken in the well and cave I headed back into the centre of Knaresborough and caught the bus back into Harrogate where I grabbed a quick lunch before hopping on another bus out to the RHS gardens at Harlow Carr out the back of town.

The gardens occupy a large estate that flows around the banks of a small river. On the valley bank closest to the entrance are the formal gardens and planting, whilst on the opposite side of the river a woodland runs up the side of the valley with several walks running between the trees and plants.

I spent a good couple of hours wandering around the gardens before it was time to head back into Harrogate, grab my bags from the hotel and head over to the station to pick up my train back to London.