Hotels near the Royal Pump Room Museum

The Royal Pump Room Museum in Harrogate pays homage to a time when 15,000 visitors a year would flock to the town's wells to sip a glass of sulphur water, revealing the history of the town and how it became the European spa, popular with royals, politicians and fashionable socialites.

Displays tell stories of royal visits and connections - how you could virtually hold a cabinet meeting in the Pump Room because so many members of the government visited - and how the town played host to literary greats such as Byron, Tennyson and Charles Dickens (who, incidentally, described it as "the queerest place with the strangest people in it leading the oddest lives").

There are occasional temporary exhibitions, and visitors can still try a complimentary taste of the sulphur water. While certainly not to everyone's taste, it put Harrogate on the map.