page_title: Royal Pump Room, Harrogate
section_title: Drinking the waters and the outside tap
hierarchical_section_title: Royal Pump Room, Harrogate / The Pump Room's history and historical context / Drinking the waters and the outside tap
caption_attribution_description: Royal Pump Room Museum, Harrogate, North Yorkshire. Designed by Isaac Thomas Shutt (1818–1879) in 1842. The glazed Annexe was added in 1913 by architect Leonard Clarke. Showing tap for free spa water.
context_page_description: The Royal Pump Room is a Grade II* listed building in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England. Today it houses the town's museum – operated by Harrogate Borough Council. It was formerly a spa water pump house. It is located in Crown Place in the western part of Harrogate town centre, opposite the town's Valley Gardens park. It is bounded by two streets, Crescent Road and Royal Parade. Today, the Pump Room consists of both the original 1842 stone rotunda and a glazed annexe which was opened in 1913. The Pump Room offered guests of the town an all weather facility where they could drink sulphur water which was pumped on site from a natural spring known as the Old Sulphur Well. The building also had a social element to it as it provided guests with a place to meet friends and get to know others.
context_section_description: In the heyday of the Pump Room, guests would arrive early in the morning from 7 am until about 9.30 am in order to drink one or two glasses of water. This was all done before they had any breakfast.
  After entering the building they would pay an attendant for their sulphur water. The water was traditionally served in glasses from a wooden counter. Visitors to the pump room were charged for drinking its water inside the building. Hollins' Handbook for Harrogate stated that an Act of Parliament governed the price of the water from the Pump Room. For an individual it would cost 1 shilling to drink sulphur water at the Pump Room for a week. A family could drink the waters at the Pump Room for the same duration at a cost of 4 shillings.
  However, legislation from as early as 1841 stated that Strong Sulphur Water was to be made available for free to those who could not afford it.
  The Harrogate Improvement Commissioners Board's  1841 Harrogate Act established the principle that the poor should not be excluded from the perceived medicinal benefits of Harrogate's sulphur water. In order to conform to the act the Pump Room provided an outside tap which anyone could use at any time. After 9.30 am the Pump Room's attendants stopped serving well water inside the building. From this time onward the outside tap was the only source of well water. In the early days of the building an attendant supervised the tap.
  This tap still exists today and it still works, although it is not recommended to try the water, due to the health risks involved.
caption: The Pump Room's outside tap with sulphur deposits and staining visible and health warning sign
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