Distance Covered: 4.5 miles Time to complete walk: 2 hours
Safety Tips: A part of the walk is through a wood with rocky outcrops- wear your walking boots for this one! There are fallen branches on the rocky path. Be careful maintaining safety at all times. Take a walking stick with you. Take extra care crossing the roads.
A walk from the popular town of Harrogate. Great for families. Get to know Harrogate by walking through the beautiful Valley Gardens and visiting the Royal Pump Room Museum. Then returning through the affluent Duchy suburb and clamber through woods with a rocky outcrops. Visit the renowned Bettys Tea Rooms after your walk!
The Harrogate Walk
From Middlesbrough follow the A19 until it joins the A1 southbound. Take the exit which is junction 47 and will be signposted to Leeds Bradford Airport. Follow the A59 which soon becomes the A658. Then turn right onto the A61 and follow this road into Harrogate. Head for the Victoria Gardens Shopping Centre and park in the Multi Storey Car Park nearby. In the car park take the lift to Level 10 and join a walkway into the shopping centre.
Map of the Harrogate Walk
The Walk
From the car park head for Level 10 and follow the walkway in to the shopping centre.
Walkway into the centre
Make your way down to street level in the shopping centre and then exit from it. Take the right exit onto Cambridge Street and then take a left where Boots is on the corner. Walk past a church on your right and head for the prominent War Memorial.
Turn left where Boots is
Walk past the church on your right
Cross over passing the war memorial
Cross over the zebra crossing and pass by to the left of Bettys Tea Rooms (An essential visit on the way back).
Walk past Bettys Tea Rooms
Continue and walk past the front of The Crown hotel.
Walk past The Crown Hotel
Walk over another crossing and then head down past the Royal Pump Room Museum. The museum is small but if it is of interest to you it is £4.00 admission fee per adult.
The Royal Pump Room Museum
Inside the Royal Pump Room Museum
Cross another zebra crossing and enter the Valley Gardens.
Entrance to the Valley Gardens
Take the left path through the gardens. There is a cafe and a Japanese Garden to the left of the path.
Café in the Valley Gardens
Japanese Garden
Head onwards on the path and when you come to some tennis courts and a kids play area turn right and follow the path past the tennis courts and a mini golf course.
Walk past tennis courts and a mini golf course
Join a path from the right and follow this path up a steady incline passing a Bowling Green to your right.
Follow the path
Look for a war memorial to your right and follow the path into the Pinewoods
War Memorial to the right
Follow the path into the woods
Keep on the path through the woods until you eventually emerge onto a road. Cross straight over and continue on the path ahead.
Cross the road and follow the path ahead
Continue on the path and you will emerge into a clearing to the left.
Emerge into the clearing
Follow the path ahead and you will soon come to a pair of binoculars to your right. This is the Pinewoods Panorama and worth a look!
Binoculars with panoramic view
Continue on the path ahead and you will emerge near a carpark. Turn right and follow the road ahead.
Turn right onto the road
Follow the road ahead
The road then becomes gravelly. At a right end bend in the road look for a signpost to your left and enter the wooded area.
Look for a signpost to the left
Enter the wooded area
Rock Formation
As long as you keep to the higher path, you will then eventually come to a gate onto a road.
Gate onto the road
Turn left, and taking care with the traffic cross over the road and then take the second right turning onto a rough road.
Turn right onto the road
Follow the road which soon becomes Kent Road. Keep on this road passing through a very leafy and affluent part of Harrogate called The Duchy. The streets are all names after dukedoms. Look for a right turning onto Kent Avenue.
Turn right onto Kent Avenue
Walk up Kent Avenue towards the eye catching St Wilfreds Church ahead, which is considered Harrogates most outstanding building.
St Wilfreds Church
Harrogate is a spa town in North Yorkshire, England. Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire
, the town is a tourist destination and its visitor attractions include its spa waters and RHS Harlow Carr gardens. 12.7 miles (20.4 km) away from the town centre is the Yorkshire Dales national park and the Nidderdale AONB. Harrogate grew out of two smaller settlements, High Harrogate and Low Harrogate, in the 17th century. Since 2013, polls have consistently voted the town as "the happiest place to live" in Britain.
Harrogate spa water contains iron, sulphur and common salt. The town became known as 'The English Spa' in the Georgian era, after its waters were discovered in the 16th century. In the 17th and 18th centuries its 'chalybeate' waters (containing iron) were a popular health treatment, and the influx of wealthy but sickly visitors contributed significantly to the wealth of the town.
Harrogate railway station and Harrogate bus station in the town centre provide transport connections. Leeds Bradford International Airport is 10 miles (16 km) south-west of Harrogate. The main roads through the town are the A61, connecting Harrogate to Leeds and Ripon and the A59, connecting the town to York and Skipton. Harrogate is also connected to Wetherby and the A1, by the A661. The town of Harrogate had a population of 71,594 at the 2001 UK census ;the urban area comprising Harrogate and nearby Knaresborough had a population of 85,128, while the figure for the much wider Borough of Harrogate, comprising Harrogate, Knaresborough, Ripon, as well as a number of smaller settlements and a large rural area, was 151,339.
The town motto is Arx celebris fontibus, which means "a citadel famous for its springs."
Turn left from the church and turn right into Clarence Drive.
Turn right into Clarence Drive
Walk ahead crossing over York Road and through a gate into the Valley Gardens again. Turn left walking under a pergola and back to the entrance of the Valley Gardens. Head for Bettys Tea Rooms!
Go through the entrance into Valley Gardens
Harrogate
, the town is a tourist destination and its visitor attractions include its spa waters and RHS Harlow Carr gardens. 12.7 miles (20.4 km) away from the town centre is the Yorkshire Dales national park and the Nidderdale AONB. Harrogate grew out of two smaller settlements, High Harrogate and Low Harrogate, in the 17th century. Since 2013, polls have consistently voted the town as "the happiest place to live" in Britain.
Harrogate spa water contains iron, sulphur and common salt. The town became known as 'The English Spa' in the Georgian era, after its waters were discovered in the 16th century. In the 17th and 18th centuries its 'chalybeate' waters (containing iron) were a popular health treatment, and the influx of wealthy but sickly visitors contributed significantly to the wealth of the town.
Harrogate railway station and Harrogate bus station in the town centre provide transport connections. Leeds Bradford International Airport is 10 miles (16 km) south-west of Harrogate. The main roads through the town are the A61, connecting Harrogate to Leeds and Ripon and the A59, connecting the town to York and Skipton. Harrogate is also connected to Wetherby and the A1, by the A661. The town of Harrogate had a population of 71,594 at the 2001 UK census ;the urban area comprising Harrogate and nearby Knaresborough had a population of 85,128, while the figure for the much wider Borough of Harrogate, comprising Harrogate, Knaresborough, Ripon, as well as a number of smaller settlements and a large rural area, was 151,339.
The town motto is Arx celebris fontibus, which means "a citadel famous for its springs."
