This model stable block was built in 1890 by Samson Fox internationally known as an inventor and engineer, who lived at Grove House, adjoining. Dwellings either side of the arch were for butler and coachman with their families. Grooms lived overlooking the yard. The clock tower is still topped by Fox’s insignia The Running Fox, originally it housed a carillon of bells.

Known as Chapel Street before its renaming in 1908, this thoroughfare was the first direct link between the sulphur well in Low Harrogate and the Chapel of Ease of 1749 (later known as Christ Church) in High Harrogate. Its principal buildings were the Wesley Chapel of 1862, Belle Vue (home of the remarkable Captain Thrush) of 1862, the Old Ship Inn, and the Grand Opera House (now the Harrogate Theatre) of 1900. These present offices for the Halifax Building Society (Architects Jackson & Calvert) were completed in 1987, replacing an 1860s villa (Possibly built as a manse to the Wesley Chapel) on the same site.

Alexander Wedderburn M. P. (1733-1805) acquired three closes of land in Harrogate on lease from the Crown in 1775. In 1786 he bought land to the north, bounded by The Stray, and built Wedderburn House, possibly incorporating part of an earlier structure. John Carr of York is reputed to have been the architect. Wedderburn was Lord Chancellor of Great Britain from 1793 to 1801 and was created Baron Loughborough and First Earl of Rosslyn. He was a frequent visitor to the Spa and built the original St. John’s Well Pump Room in 1786. He laid out the estate’s beech plantations and Strayside Walk and was also a keen patron of the Harrogate Theatre. Wedderburn House was enlarged after his death and the grounds were developed for housing in the Twentieth Century.

Behold Bogs Field, a wonder of the natural world where a greater number of unique springs come to the surface than at any other known place on Earth! 36 of Harrogate’s 88 mineral wells are found here, of which no two are alike. The waters are Magnetic or Plutonic in origin, having never existed as rain, and have flowed deep beneath the earth for 20,000 years before surfacing through vertical shafts in the strata. Know in C15 as Sauerkeld or Sour Springs, Bogs Field was investigated and developed by the Victorians who piped the mineral waters to the Royal bath Hospital and to the Pump Rooms and Baths of Low Harrogate. The wells, whose location is shown on the plan opposite are : Alexandra Chalybeate, Alum Well, Chalybeate, Hospital Chalybeate, Hospital Mild Sulphur, Hospital Strong Sulphur, Pure Chalybeate, Sulphur, Magnesia Well, Victoria Well. The chemical composition of four of the principal wells is shown on the other side of this plaque.

No 36 Victoria Well : Chemical analysis by Hayton Davis in 1884 No 49 Alum Well : Chemical analysis by Hayton Davis in 1870 No 53 Pure Chalybeate Well : Chemical analysis by Hayton Davis in 1854 No 54 Magnesia Well : Chemical analysis by Muspratt in 1867

This building, erected in 1883, served as a nurses home for the Infirmary opposite, now St Peter’s school. The first ‘Cottage Hospital’, built in 1870 at the corner of Belford Street and Tower Street, was succeeded in 1883 by its larger neighbour which was converted into a school in 1937. Carlingford was extensively restored in 1988 by the Brentwood Design Partnership.

Church Square developed long before the creation of The Stray in 1778, probably after the building of the Bay Horse Inn (now The Empress) at the junction of the ancient Here - gate (or soldiers’ way) and Gamell-gate - the way to Bilton where Gamelbar held land before 1086. Near this spot Eli Hargrove had his toy shop and in 1775 published the first guide and history of Harrogate. Here too, from 1837-1968, stood Christ Church school. A major redevelopment (1988-1991) by Goldsborough greatly improved the architectural appearance of the square.

Swan Road grew around an ancient route linking the Ripon turnpike road with the Swan Inn and the Old Sulphur Well. The Duchy of Lancaster promoted development of the area after 1840, when Promenade Terrace was built by T. H. Walker. George Dawson built 3-29 Swan Road from 1881-6. The villa was destroyed by a lone Nazi bomber in 1840, and rebuilt in 1987 by Goldsborough to harmonize with the neighbouring buildings designed by Isaac Thomas Shutt architect of the Royal Pump Room.

Victoria Gardens occupies the site of Harrogate’s first covered public market, built in 1874 to the design of Arthur Hiscoe. On 31 January 1937, this building was destroyed by fire and was replaced in 1939 by a new market hall designed by Leonard Clarke. The present building, funded by the National Provident Institution and developed in partnership with Harrogate Borough Council and Speyhawk Retail PLC (Architects : Cullearn & Phillips of Manchester), opened to the public on 9 November 1992. Inspired by Palladio’s Basilica at Vicenza, Victoria Gardens continues Harrogate’s tradition of quality shopping whilst retaining the market. As part of the development, Station Square was remodelled and Queen Victoria’s monument, built to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of 1887, was cleaned and illuminated by the Borough Council.

The 12 original almshouses, built in 1868, were a gift of George Rogers, the Bradford textile manufacturer and Harrogate philanthropist. The present day Trustees have built a further 2 almshouses and in 1992, with the aid of a grant from the Housing Corporation, the almshouses were refurbished to present day standards. The almshouses are available to persons from Harrogate or Bradford who are over 60 years of age. The Clock Tower is decorated with a bust of Mr Rogers and his emblem of industry - the beehive.

The Woods family have been associated with fine linens since the 18th century when they were produced at the famous Castle Mill at Knaresborough. The present business was founded by W. E. Woods in 1895 at 7 Prince’s Street, the success of which led to these larger premises in the terrace built by the Victoria Park Company after 1870. Following a programme of careful restoration from 1992, the terrace adopted the name of Prince Albert Row in memory of Queen Victoria’s Consort, Prince Albert (1819-1861), “the best king England never had”

Inns were established near the world’s strongest sulphur well by the 1660s and the antiquity of Hale’s Bar is shown by its cellars, as such excavations were prohibited by an Act of 1770. The inn would have been known to Tobias Smollett who in 1766 visited Harrogate, in which he set part of his novel ‘Humphrey Clinker’. It was a lively coaching Inn, with coaches such as the ‘Courier’, ‘Tally Ho!’ and ‘Teazle’ arriving and departing. Known as the ‘Promenade Inn’ after the opening of the nearby Promenade Room in 1806, it changed its name to ‘Hodgson’s’ (C.1849) before adopting the name of its landlord, William Hale, in about 1862. Enlarged to the east in 1856, the inn was a favourite with Sir John Barbirolli who visited Harrogate each summer with the Halle Orchestra throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Hale’s Bar still retains its gas-lit, early Victorian interior, used in 1980 for the publicity shots for the film ‘Chariots of Fire’.

The Magnesia Well (number 54 on the official list), was identified by Dr. Short in his 1652 book “The Yorkshire Spaw”. Recommended as a powerful diuretic, the Magnesia Well contains a mild sulphur water, which was once highly popular, requiring the neighbouring Pump Room to be built in 1858, succeeded in 1895 by the New Magnesia Pump Room, now the Café. The water was analysed in 1867 by the celebrated chemist Dr. Sheridan Muspratt. This Well Head was restored in 1999 by the Harrogate Civic Society, the cost having been donated in loving memory of Kit Kelly by his mother, Irene, and brother, David.

The Pure Chalybeate Well (number 53 on the official list), is a remarkably pure water, of very low salinity, similar to High Harrogate’s St. John’s and Tewit Wells, all of which were once used to treat delicate and anaemic patients. The water was once piped to the Royal baths for aeration. Harrogate Civic Society restored the Well Head in 1999.

Tradition dates Harrogate’s oldest hotel from 11687 when it was built as a Coaching Inn called the “Queen’s Head’, possibly after Catherine of Braganza, consort of Charles II, who received the revenues of the Forest of Knaresborough. It was rebuilt in its present form in 1855 and extended in 1861. The owner, John Dearlove, together with J. Benn of the Granby and J. Shutt of the Swan, was a prosecutor of Thackwray of the Crown Hotel, whose attempt in 1835 to divert the waters of the public sulphur spring led to a demand for better protection for the mineral springs. This was accomplished when, following three public meetings held here in November 1840, Parliament passed the Improvement Act of 1841. The costs of the Thackwray case were met by Dearlove, Benn and Shutt, whose public spirited action ensured the future of Harrogate. In 1951 the hotel became the regional Headquarters for the National Health Service before reopening as a hotel in 1999.

The Hotel Majestic opened on 18 July 1900 as the finest hotel of the world’s greatest spa. Built by Frederick Hotels and designed by London architect G D Martin, the Majestic has, for over a century, been the preferred address of visitors such as Winston Churchill, Edward Elgar, Errol Flynn, ‘James Herriot’, G B Shaw and several Prime Ministers. Bombed on 12 July 1940, the Hotel Majestic served as an RAF Reception Centre during the Second World War. It was extensively refurbished between 1998 and 2002.

These premises contain Prospect Cottage, principal farmhouse of medieval Crookisnab - an irregular promontory separating the two ancient villages of High and Low Harrogate. From 1814 to 1826 it was home to James Franklin, who in 1810 purchased for £9000 the whole of central Harrogate between York Place and the site of the Hotel Majestic. Until c.1760, Prospect Cottage was central Harrogate’s only substantial building.

Beech Villa and its neighbour, Beech Lodge, were built in the 1850’s as a model development by the Duchy of Lancaster and served for many years as private hotels. In 1913, E M Forster, the author of ‘Howard’s End’, ‘A Passage to India’, etc stayed here when writing his controversial novel ‘Maurice’. The buildings are not open to the public.

JRR Tolkein, author of “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings”, stayed here in the spring of 1917 while recovering from the Trench Fever he caught during the Great War.

This 17th Century listed bridge, within the Royal Forest of Knaresborough, carried packhorse traffic between Knaresborough and Ripley, through Bilton, Knox and Killinghall, across Oak Beck until the development of other roads in the 18th century. Flood sluices at different levels show the changing rate of water flow. The bridge keeper’s house, behind the high wall, was demolished c.1900, only the sundial and two impressive pillars surviving.