Royal Pump Room, Harrogate

The waters from the natural spring upon which the Pump Room is built upon contains the greatest amount of sulphur of all of Harrogate's many water springs. The water from the Old Sulphur Well was termed Strong Sulphur Water to distinguish it from sulphurous waters from the town's other wells. Betty Lupton (c.1760–1843), dispensed Strong Sulphur Water from a well for approximately six decades at the Pump Room's present site. She retired in 1843, just as the Pump Room was completed. According to a contemporary newspaper obituary, she died on 22 August 1843 and was said to be 83 years old. It is known that in 1837, she was given the honorary title 'The Queen of the Well'. This title was held…

The Pump Room, and its later Annexe, were renovated in the early 1950s and it first opened as the new town museum in 1953. Bath chairs could be hired by guests from a rank of chairs and then bath chair men would push visitors from the rank to the various hotels and spa buildings. Recently a number of glass Hamilton style bottles – often known as 'torpedo' bottles – which all bare the inscription "bottled at the Royal Pump Room, Harrogate", were donated to the museum. Very few of these unusually shaped Victorian bottles have survived. They now form part of the display of the Pump Room's bottling room. This display serves as a reminder that there was a wider social and economic significance…